Eugène BOUDIN (Honfleur 1824-Deauville 1898) Lot n° 25

BOULOGNE-SUR-MER, LE PORT, 1891-1893 Oil on canvas Signed lower right 45.4 x 64.5 cm Provenance Former collection Marlborough Fine Art Ltd, London, 1967 Swiss collection Bibliography Eugène Boudin 1824-1898, catalogue raisonné, volume III, Paris 1973, n°2875, page 114 ill. Exhibition London, Marlborough Fine Art Ltd, A Tribute to Paul Maze, the Painter and his time, May 1967, n°45, page 20, (illustrated page 29 and titled Scène de Port.) "If I became a painter, it is to Boudin that I owe it", said Claude Monet. It was Boudin who instilled in his young friend the taste for painting outdoors. The painting we present was painted between 1891 and 1893, it is interesting to have a glimpse of the events experienced by the painter during this period. In March 1891, Durand-Ruel organized an exhibition of the artist's works and can finally declare that the Golden Age has arrived for French painting (which was going through an acute financial crisis). In 1892, the State buys from Boudin at the Salon, the Rade de Villefranche -sur-Mer, and in October, Puvis de Chavannes, at the instigation of Mr Léon Bourgeois - Minister of Public Instruction - is charged with awarding him the Cross of the Legion of Honour. In 1893, he paints in the South of France almost all of his paintings from Antibes while returning to Normandy.