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