
Read the visual description
About two dozen men and women sit in straight-backed, wooden chairs gathered along a sandy expanse around pockets of water under a slate-blue sky that fills the top two-thirds of this horizontal landscape painting. Most of the people sit with their backs to us but the faces we can see suggest they all have light skin. The people gather in a loose crowd that crosses the left two-thirds of the composition. The women wear dark hats and long dresses with full skirts, their shoulders wrapped in shawls in black, red, dark yellow, or cream white. The men also wear hats, most of them black bowler hats, and suits in black or pecan brown. A few women hold up blue parasols in harvest gold, slate blue, teal, or gray. Two women and a man sit on the sand to the right. Three changing huts stand behind the group across the left half, and two brown horses stand at the water’s edge nearby. Three poles march into the distance to the right near where more people gather across a pocket of water. The artist signed and dated the lower right corner, “E. Boudin – 65.”
National Gallery of Art · Painting
Bathing Time at Deauville
Eugène Boudin
- Date
- 1865
- Medium
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- overall: 34.7 x 57.5 cm (13 11/16 x 22 5/8 in.) framed: 58.4 x 81.6 x 12.7 cm (23 x 32 1/8 x 5 in.)
- Classification
- Painting
- Accession number
- 1983.1.8
- Credit line
- Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
- Time span
- 1851 to 1875
- Department
- CF
Subjects and terms
- painted surface
- French
- amusement
- genre
- Impressionist
- Beach
- Deauville
Provenance
(Cabruja sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 20 May 1921, no. 5); purchased by Durand-Ruel.[1] (sale, Christie's, London, 23 April 1937, no. 102, as Property of a Lady); (Arthur Tooth & Sons, London);[2] sold January 1943 to Mrs. Peter Pleydell-Bouverie, London, until at least 1954.[3] N. Beecham.[4] (Marlborough-Gerson Gallery, New York); sold December 1963 to Mr. Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA; gift 1983 to NGA. [1] Annotated sales catalogue in Knoelder library fiche (copy in NGA curatorial files). [2] Annotated sales catalogue in Knoedler library fiche (copy in NGA curatorial files). Arthur Tooth records, accession no. 860679, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: volume XXI, London branch stock inventory, p. 105. [3] _The Pleydell-Bouverie Collection of Impressionist and Other Paintings_, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1954, no. 6. [4] Beecham given as prior owner in _A Selection of Important 19th Century French Masters_, exh. cat., Marlborough Fine Art Ltd, London, October 1960, no. 3.
Inscription
lower right: E. Boudin - 65
NGA object ID 61358. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.