The Odet near Quimper

Boudin first came to Brittany in 1855, and the country around Quimper was where he began. He drew a great deal there and painted several small panels of farms and of the banks of the Odet, the river that runs through the town. This is one of them, oil on a wooden panel only 27 centimetres wide, which the museum dates somewhere between 1855 and 1858. A tall tree stands over the water, and a small figure walks the path along the bank on the left.

By 1864 the panel belonged to Jean-Marie de Silguy, a count and retired engineer of roads and canals who had bought much of his collection at sales in Paris. When he died in Quimper that year he left the city about 1,200 paintings, on condition that it build a museum to hold them. The building went up on the main square, facing the cathedral, and opened in 1872 with this little river view among its founding pictures.