Return of the Terre-Neuvier

Eugène Boudin

National Gallery of Art

A two-masted ship with sails furled has been pulled onto a beach as dozens of people bustle on and around it in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted and many details are indistinct throughout. The ship dominates the right half of the composition, listing slightly to the left as the bow lodges in the sand. People working on the deck pass crates and goods down to others standing on a ladder or horse-drawn carriage pulled up alongside the hull. The women wear long brown, gray, or dark blue skirts, shawls in shades of golden yellow, marigold orange, dusky pink, or muted green, and white headdresses. The men’s clothing is earth brown and gray, and a few wear brick-red caps. Three women and perhaps a child sit or stand to or right next to a line of goods in bundles, baskets, and crates that separate us from the line of activity closer to the shore. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition, and the ship’s masts thrust into a sky nearly filled with slate-gray clouds. A couple patches of vivid blue line the top of the painting, and white streaks in the distance to the left suggest sunlight pouring through another break in the clouds. The artist inscribed the site in the lower left corner, “Portrieux” and signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “E Boudin 1875.”