View of the Port of Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme

The bay of the Somme has been filling with sand for centuries. By the time Boudin set up here, big ships could no longer work their way up the estuary. Trade survived because a canal had been cut from Abbeville down to Saint-Valéry, opened in 1827, and it kept the quays going almost to the end of the century. That is the port you are looking at, still working, near the small end of its life. Boudin came back to this town summer after summer between 1885 and 1891 and left around 60 canvases of the bay. This one is from the last of those years, when he was 67. On the right the masts crowd the stone quay, and the far bank is already trees and shallow water.