Рыбацкие лодки (этюд)

In 1860, across the estuary from where Boudin was working, the duc de Morny was buying up marshland to lay out Deauville from nothing as a resort for Parisians. Within a few years Boudin would be known for the crowds the new railway brought down to that coast, the women in crinolines sitting out on the sand at Trouville. This study belongs to the working shore instead. Fishing boats, laid in quickly on a board not much bigger than a postcard, outdoors and for himself. He kept hundreds of these. After he died in 1898 his brother Louis carried out his wishes and handed the contents of the studio to the city of Le Havre, some 240 sketches, this one among them.