Étaples

In 1889 Paris had the Exposition Universelle, the brand-new Eiffel Tower and visitors by the million, and Boudin, then 65, collected a gold medal there. He spent the working season where he always did, on the coast. Etaples sits at the mouth of the Canche in the Pas-de-Calais, a fishing port where the tide withdraws a long way and leaves the boats sitting on wet sand. By then British, American and Australian painters had settled in the town for the light and the cheap lodgings. Boudin had the habit of noting the date, the wind and the state of the sky on his studies, because for him the weather was the subject. Manchester bought this one in 1908, ten years after he died.