Trouville, awaiting the tide

The flags flying from these masts are French tricolours, and in 1874 that flag was a political question. France had been a republic since 1870, though no constitution yet said so, and the royalist majority in parliament had come close to restoring a king. The plan fell apart in the autumn of 1873, partly because the claimant, the Count of Chambord, refused to reign under the tricolour and held out for the white flag of the old monarchy. Here the fishing boats of Trouville are dressed in those colours for some celebration, sitting on the sand at low water, masts leaning at odd angles, waiting for the tide to float them. Boudin painted the little wooden panel out on the beach. The title is not his. It is the one the picture had when the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich acquired it.