Details
- Object type
painting
- Title
Washerwomen on Banks of the River Touques
- Artist/Maker
Eugène Boudin artist
- Culture/School
French
- Place Associated
France, Normandy, Trouville-Deauville, river Touques (place depicted)
- Date
circa 1888-1895
- Materials
oil on panel
- Dimensions
framed: 393 mm x 524 mm x 70 mm; unframed: 206 mm x 330 mm
- Description
-
Boudin painted more than one hundred small pictures of washerwomen working by the banks of a river. Most of these views show this river, the river Touques in Normandy. The river flows past the towns of Trouville and Deauville and out into the Channel coast.
The subject of these small works is very different from Boudin’s paintings of the beach of Trouville. Instead of fashionable visitors idling on the sand, here we see the local women hard at work. Boudin rarely shows these women turning to each other and chattering; instead they are seen from behind, their backs bent, intent on their task.
The washerwomen are intent on their task. Their washing lies beside them in bundles, loaded into baskets and piled high on a stool. With their sleeves rolled up, the women lean over the water’s edge rinsing their garments in the water, rubbing them together using the sand as an abrasive and beating them against the stones and rocks.
These washerwomen provided the artist with an ideal subject for his painting. Boudin could combine his observation of the human figure with his love for painting water, sky and landscape. It also allowed him to explore a variety of colour harmonies, often achieving, as here, rich tapestry-like effects.
- Credit Line/Donor
Gifted by Sir William and Lady Burrell to the City of Glasgow, 1944
- Collection
Burrell Collection: Pictures [Oils, Pastels and Watercolours]
- ID Number
35.50
- Location
In storage