Le Bateaux de pêche (1865)

Courbet, Gustave (1819-1877)

Le Bateaux de pêche (The Fishing Boat)
1865
Oil on canvas, 64.8 x 81.3 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Courbet painted this work during an intensely productive visit to Trouville with James McNeill Whistler from September until November 1865; in a letter to his father, the artist boasted that he had executed “thirty-five paintings” in a very short time, which “stunned everybody.” In his choice of subject, Courbet followed in the wake of Eugène Isabey, Johan Barthold Jongkind, and Eugène Boudin; but unlike many of the canvases executed at the time, this fishing boat, rigged and filled with equipment, is the focus of the composition rather than a subordinate element. In 1899, this became the first work by Courbet to enter the Museum’s collection. (MET)

See also:

• Trouville-sur-Mer (France)