Galerie Georges Petit, Paris
Mrs. J. Harrington Walker, Detroit 

In his last decade, Boudin painted this beach scene at Deauville under a windswept sky. Le Rivage de Deauville epitomizes the wonderful freshness of Boudin's plein-airisme. Indeed, the artist himself wrote: “Everything painted on the spot has a strength, vigour and vivacity of touch that can never be attained in the studio. Three brushstrokes from nature are worth more than two days in the studio at the easel'' (quoted in The Birth of Impressionism, from Constable to Monet, Glasgow, 1997, p. 23). He later added: “Sometimes when I'm out walking in a melancholy frame of mind, I look at this light which floods the earth, which quivers on the water and plays on clothes and it is frightening to think how much genius is required to capture so many difficulties, how limited a man's spirit is, not being able to input all these things together in his head. And then again I sense that the poetry is there and sense how to capture it. I sometimes catch a glimpse of what would have to be expressed'' (quoted in ibid., p. 90).