Women Washing Clothes at Étretat

Étretat has no river you can see. The stream that drains its valley runs underground through the chalk and comes out only on the beach, seeping through the base of the shingle bank when the tide goes out. The village women carried their laundry down to that fresh water at low tide, and one of the springs is still called Les Laveuses, the washerwomen. Postcards show women washing on the stones well into the 20th century. In this picture a group of them kneels over the linen in white caps, with one woman standing among the rest and a red cloth spread on the pebbles. Out at sea, two sailing boats and a steamer trailing smoke pass along the horizon. Boudin painted it on a small wooden panel, about 23 by 36 centimetres, which the museum in Ghent dates only loosely, between about 1890 and 1894, to the last years of his life.