Il molo e il pontile di Trouville

On 1 July 1863 the railway from Paris finally reached Trouville. Before that the usual way in was the steamer across the Seine estuary from Le Havre, and that is the boat at the end of Boudin's jetty, two masts and a funnel laying black smoke across the top of the picture.

He painted it the same year, on a wooden panel about 35 centimetres high and not quite twice as wide. Trouville was in the middle of turning from a fishing harbour into the place fashionable Paris went in August, and the crowd on the pier is there for the boat.

Paul Mellon bought it in 1963 and gave it to the National Gallery of Art in Washington 20 years later.