Le Havre

Eugène Boudin

National Gallery of Art

We look across a channel of choppy water at three masted ships, a sailboat, at least one steamer, and three rowboats in this horizontal seascape painting. The white peaks and waves are painted with pearlescent shades of white, gold, ice blue, and the faintest pink tinge. The steamer belches gray smoke along a coastline in the distance to the left. The sailboat is farther back. Two of the three masted ships edge closer to us to the right of the sailboat. The ship is first almost halfway across the canvas from the left edge, and the second, which flies a flag vertically striped with blue, white, and red, is about two-thirds of the way across. The third masted ship is much farther away near the right edge of the composition. Two of the long rowboats are near the bottom left corner of the painting and the third is far out by the third ship. The horizon comes about a quarter of the way up the painting. Puffy gray clouds pile up on the horizon and are edged in white where they face open blue sky along the top edge. Cloud cover is streaked around the most distant ship, suggesting that a storm has begun. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes throughout. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “E. Boudin. 83” and labeled the location to the right, “Le Havre.”