Eugène Boudin, Boats Decorated with Flags in the Port of Deauville, 1895

Read more about this painting at the associated catalogue entry.

Boats Decorated with Flags in the Port of Deauville was painted on a wooden panel, estimated to be mahogany.¹ The panel measures 26.8 x 34.9 x 7 centimeters,² and its reverse edges are beveled. The panel feels nearly weightless, a benefit to an artist like Eugène Boudin who carried his materials outdoors. “PIGNEL DUPONT 17 RUE LEPIC PARIS”³ (Fig. 19) has been stamped into the back of the panel, and the entire reverse has been painted brown.⁴

Despite purchasing the panel from an artist supplier, Boudin seems to have applied the ground layer himself. The off-white ground was thinly applied and does not extend to the edges of the panel, leaving areas of wood exposed along the sides (Fig. 20). In contrast to Port of Deauville (ca. 1884; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art),⁵ there is no imprimatura layer, though Boudin took advantage of the warm tones of the panel to achieve a similar end.⁶ As in many of his works, large areas of ground are visible between passages of paint in the final composition. The ground retains a relatively smooth, matte surface compared to the thicker, glossier paint layers (Fig. 21).

Under magnification, underdrawing estimated to be charcoal remains visible along the decks of the ships (Fig. 22) and beneath rigging. The reflected infrared (IR) image reveals a line of charcoal in the rightmost ship’s rigging, likely a rope that was never painted into the final composition (Fig. 23). Dispersed charcoal particles throughout the paint surface are likely the result of Boudin’s vigorous brushwork moving the dry media of the underdrawing.⁷

In addition to his charcoal sketch, Boudin developed the outlines of the boats and other details along the horizon using quick strokes of thin, washy paint in blackish-brown and brownish-violet.⁸ This painted underdrawing remains visible in the negative space below the bridge and in the white hull of the ship to the left of the bridge (Fig. 24). Léon Leclerc recalls these early stages after watching Boudin work: “He sketched quickly in large masses without any concern for detail; from a distance one already had the impression of a finished painting, whereas up close one only saw shapeless tones placed side by side.”⁹

LeClerc continues: “He observed carefully, seemed to meditate, then suddenly, the brush laden with color would land on the canvas, marking sometimes a simple point, sometimes a line, sometimes a tache".”¹⁰ This juxtaposition of quiet contemplation and bustling activity is evident in the blend of wet-over-wet and wet-over-dry brushwork throughout the composition (Fig. 25). Areas of wet-over-dry brushwork imply that the landscape was completed over a period of time. However, the combination of Boudin’s rapid brushwork and materials (thin ground applied to an absorbent panel),¹¹ accompanied by warm, sunny weather,¹² may have allowed him to paint the landscape in one sitting.^{13, 14} In one passage, for example, the paintbrush was dragged across the wet surface, creating a deep furrow in the underlying paint, while directly adjacent is a tache of similar color that lightly touches the white paint, wet-over-dry, without disrupting the outer skin of the curing paint (Fig. 26).

Boudin’s brushes moved back and forth between the sky, the sea, and the band of detail along the horizon, painting across the composition concurrently and returning to add a point, a line, or a tache. The sky was laid in using blue and white, and then masts and rigging were painted with a thin brush, using wet-over-wet strokes in brown, blue, and black. Boudin added thick, colorful brushstrokes to represent the flags strung along the rigging before returning to the sky. The expanse of brilliant blue in the upper right is layered over clouds already beginning to dry, leaving the impasto texture of the white brushstrokes intact (Fig. 27). There are strokes of muted red, yellow, and greenish blue, possibly indicating a shift of a flag’s location, or perhaps paint from the flag remained in Boudin’s brush as he continued painting the sky.

The harbor is mostly blue, white, and turquoise water, interspersed with swipes of red, green, and yellow representing reflections of boats. The luminous darkness of the lefthand ships’ hulls comes from a combination of deep brown, blue, and red, with thin lines of yellow highlights. The white ship at the center is a complex amalgam of red, pale blue, brown, and white, again highlighted with thin swipes of yellow, as seen in Figure 24. Traction cracks appear throughout the painting, especially in the detail along the horizon. For example, cracks run through the hull of the ship to the left (Fig. 28), as well as throughout the figures to the right of the bridge.

The painting is generally in good condition. There are minor scrapes, indentations, and gouges around the back perimeter, indicating the panel was secured into a frame using nails. Along the upper edge of the panel, there are small losses, the two largest of which measure approximately one centimeter; there is also a small split measuring two centimeters, which appears stable. A small split in the lower proper left corner was stabilized during a 2018 treatment.¹⁵ There are a handful of tiny paint losses across the sky, and there are some abrasions around the perimeter. Abrasions, scattered losses, and old overpaint were retouched during a 1993 treatment.¹⁶ At the same time, the painting received two layers of synthetic varnish, which remain clear and have a moderate sheen, though the retouching is slightly discolored.

There is abundant plant matter, wood, and other material embedded in the wet paint, and some impasto has been flattened. There are also linear impressions in the wet paint along the sides of the painting;¹⁷ microscopic examination reveals embedded gilding (Fig. 29), indicating the painting was framed before it was fully dry. On the far right above the red flag, there is a cluster of tiny dark spots, possibly related to framing. Under magnification, the spots are a mixture of gold-colored particles embedded in the paint and miniscule cavities surrounded by greenish staining (Fig. 30). In some areas, the particles remain intact, but where they are coated by retouching, it appears the metal has corroded, leaving behind a cavity and the associated staining.¹⁸

Notes

1. No testing was conducted; the wood was identified as mahogany by Scott A. Heffley (examination report, April 4, 1993, Nelson-Atkins conservation file, 2015.13.3), and the identification was corroborated by Joe Rogers, objects conservator at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

2. The panel’s dimensions correspond in size to a French standard-format no. 5 paysage canvas, though not to any standard-format panel listed in Lefranc et Cie’s 1899 catalogue; see Anthea Callen, The Work of Art (London: Reaktion Books, 2015), 88–89. Few existing catalogues from the period include a list of sizes for standard-format panels, and it is entirely possible that artist suppliers stocked panels in these dimensions.

3. Pignel Dupont operated in Paris from 1885 to 1895 (Pascal Labreuche, “Pignel Dupont,” Guide Labreuche: Le guide des fournisseurs de matériel pour artistes, France, XVIIIe–XXe siècles, accessed July 16, 2025, https://www.guide-labreuche.com/en/collection/businesses/pignel-dupont). The words are punched into the panel, which has been rotated ninety degrees clockwise from upright.

4. Panels with Pignel Dupont supplier stamps used by other artists (e.g. Alain Bonnaud, Barque sur la rivière, sold at Champagne Auctions, Montreal, May 28, 2019, https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/bonnaud-alain-barque-sur-la-riviere-45-c-da14bddb13) are unpainted on the reverse, suggesting that the reverse of the Nelson-Atkins panel was painted brown either by the artist or after it left his hands.

5. See the accompanying technical entry by Susan Pavlik Enterline, “Eugène Boudin, Port of Deauville, ca. 1884,” https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.606.2088.

6. Lara Broecke mentions a similar phenomenon with the thin paint layer in Au Havre (1887; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) in Broecke, “Notes on the Technique of Eugène Boudin,” Hamilton Kerr Institute Bulletin, no. 4 (2013): 51.

7. Dispersed charcoal particles were also identified in The Port of Deauville, and by Virginia Nouwen in “An Investigation into the Materials and Techniques of Eugène Louis Boudin (1824–1898)” (PGDip final year project, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2018), 21.

8. Nouwen writes of “a dilute oil paint layer . . . to outline the forms” in her discussion of underlayers in Boudin’s works. Nouwen, “An Investigation into the Materials and Techniques of Eugène Louis Boudin,” 19.

9. Leclerc, director of the Honfleur Museum, related his experiences talking with Boudin and watching him paint in 1897. See Leclerc, “Le Centenaire du Peintre Eugène Boudin,” L’Echo Honfleurais, October 4, 1924, 2: “Il ébauchait vivement par larges masses sans aucun souci du détail, de loin on avait déjà l’impression d’un tableau achevé alors que de près on n’apercevait que tons informes mis les uns a cote des autres.” All translations are by Susan Pavlik Enterline, unless otherwise noted. Passages relevant to Boudin’s painting methods are paraphrased in English in Ruth L. Benjamin, “Eugène Boudin, King of Skies,” American Magazine of Art 23, no. 3 (September 1931): 200.

10. Leclerc, “Le Centenaire du Peintre Eugène Boudin,” 2: “Il observait attentivement, semblait méditer, puis tout à coup, le pinceau chargé de couleur se posait sur la toile, marquant tantôt un simple point, tantôt une ligne, tantôt une tache.” For an overview of the tache, see Øystein Sjåstad, A Theory of the Tache in Nineteenth-Century Painting (Farnham, U.K.: Ashgate, 2014).

11. The absorbency of an unprimed wood panel allowed for more rapid working. See Iris Schaefer, Caroline von Saint-George, and Katja Lewerentz, Painting Light: The Hidden Techniques of the Impressionists (Milan: Skira, 2008), 53.

12. Higher temperatures increase the rate of solvent evaporation and oxidation, leading to faster film formation. See Rutherford J. Gettens and George L. Stout, Painting Materials: A Short Encyclopaedia (1942; repr. New York: Dover, 1966), 38.

13. It is likely Boudin worked on multiple panels in one sitting; Yacht Basin at Trouville-Deauville (1895–96; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) depicts the same boats with flags from the same vantage point. Working on multiple panels concurrently—setting one aside to work on another, then returning to the first—might allow time for film formation, the first step in the drying process.

14. An opposing argument is made by Broecke, who argues that Boudin painted only the center band of detail en plein air, and the sky and sea (or land) in the studio. See Broecke, “Notes on the Technique of Eugène Boudin,” 50–51, 53.

15. Mary Schafer, treatment report, January 12, 2018, Nelson-Atkins conservation file, 2015.13.3.

16. Scott A. Heffley, treatment report, April 20, 1993, Nelson-Atkins conservation file, 2015.13.3.

17. See the accompanying technical entry by Pavlik Enterline, “Eugène Boudin, The Port of Deauville, ca. 1884,” https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.606.2088.

18. Bronze paint was a common material on frames at the end of the nineteenth century, and its high copper content correlates with the greenish color of the corrosion present around the cavities. Instrumental analysis would be required to confirm the presence of bronze and its corrosion products on the surface of the painting.