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Lot 25: La plage à Honfleur

Est: $80,000 USD - $120,000 USD
Christie'sNew York, NY, USApril 08, 2008

Item Overview

Description

Louis Alexandre Dubourg (French, 1825-1891)
La plage à Honfleur
signed 'A. Dubourg' (lower right); inscribed 'la Plage à Honfleur en 1876' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
11½ x 19¼ in. (29 x 49 cm.)
Painted in 1876.

Artist or Maker

Exhibited

Honfleur, Musée Boudin, Centainnaire Mort Eugene Boudin Honfleur , 1998.

Provenance

Anonymous sale; Etude Labarbe, Toulouse, 15 December 2006, lot 55.
with Eric Turquin, Paris.

Notes

Born in 1825 in Honfleur, Louis Alexandre Dubourg began his artistic education as a student of Léon Cogniet. He progressed quickly and soon befriended Eugène Boudin. Under the influence of both artists, he exhibited at the Salon from 1859 until 1880 mostly portraits and scenes of the beaches of Honfleur and Deauville. In 1869, Dubourg exhibited Bains de Mer à Honfleur (now in the Musée Eugène Boudin) which received laudatory criticism from A. Darcel: 'We have noticed a transformation that makes evident the talent of Dubourg that seeks light hues as much as the brightness of today. By its general effect as well as the composition and site, his paintings recall those of Boudin, but with more science in the drawing and more seriousness in the execution.' (M. J. S. Klein, La Normandie Berceau de l'Impressionnisme , Paris, 1993, n. p.)

In the early 19th Century, painters inspired by the English landscape painters gathered in Honfleur. It was there that Alexandre Dubourg and Eugène Boudin set up a small artistic community. Corot, Isabey and Huet were among the first to join the community, whose headquarters was an inn called St. Simeon's farm ( ferme Saint Siméon ). In 1868, Boudin and Dubourg founded the Musée Eugène Boudin. The museum contains a rich collection of pre-impressionist and contemporary paintings by Norman artists, including Monet and Dufy, with the largest collection featuring the pastels and paintings of Boudin and Dubourg.

The influence of Boudin can be clearly seen in La plage à Honfleur. Elegant figures partake of an afternoon outing. The central figure group of two young mothers surrounded by their offspring draw the viewer into the scene, which expands to the left and right with other figure groups of well dressed holiday makers strolling along the beach under a dark blue sky. The hot sunlight is deftly captured by the saturated colors of the costumes and heightened by the sharp yellow of the light reflected off the umbrella of the central figure. The entire scene is executed in quick brushstrokes that also call to mind the work of Boudin.

Auction Details

19th Century European Paintings

by
Christie's
April 08, 2008, 12:00 PM EST

20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY, 10020, US