Harbours and Light: Impressionism and After
The little rowing boats of Impression, Sunrise in the harbour of Le Havre. Van Gogh’s fishing boats drawn up on the beach at Saintes-Maries. Whistler’s barges in the Thames at night, Signac’s yellow sail in Venice. The boats that taught painters to look at light.
This chapter of Ships in Paintings holds 69 works. For each one you will find the artist and, wherever the records allow, the date and where the original is kept; then what the ship brings to the picture, and the real ship behind it when there is one. See all 1,331 works on one page.
Marea can build any of these ships as a scale model, with the maximum detail the scale permits, finished to be inspected. We can build her as the artist saw her: the same rig, the same sails set, the same colours. It isn’t a copy of a painting. It’s the ship, stepping out of it.
This database was put together by Ai Refloat™, Marea’s own artificial intelligence, from the records of museums, maritime archives and published sources. Ai Refloat is still young & like any teenager, it can be a little volatile and unpredictable at times, but above all, it is learning fast. So this list may well contain mistakes and we welcome the input of everyone who knows these paintings, photographs and ships better than we do: listening, correcting and learning is one of the many ways we work towards perfection in this craft.
When no free image of a work exists, we show instead the museum or the place where the original can be seen.
Have you spotted a mistake? Tell us which painting, photograph or ship, and we will amend it accordingly. Tell us here
The works
Harbours and light · Painting
Industrial barges on the Seine, Paris Unnamed
View from the Quai d'Orsay (Vue prise du quai d'Orsay), 1854
Artist Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819 to 1891)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2001.652)
Medium Oil on canvas, mounted on wood
Jongkind stands on the left bank with the Tuileries and the Louvre on one side and the Palais d'Orsay on the other, yet what fills his foreground are working barges and a crane. The Met sees in them the appeal of the Paris working waterfront to a Dutch painter who had sketched along the Seine since 1849. A loaded barge lies against the quay with smaller boats beside it, bringing the weight of trade into a view of palaces. He worked the sketches up into this oil in the studio and showed it at the Exposition Universelle of 1855.
The vessels Industrial barges and rowing boats on the working Paris waterfront of the Seine; not individual named vessels.
Image: Johan Barthold Jongkind, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Print
Thames barge and lighters at Black Lion Wharf Unnamed
Black Lion Wharf, 1859
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (17.3.35)
Medium Etching
When he moved to London in 1859, Whistler lodged near the Thames in the docklands and began to etch the river. Here the boat in the foreground is drawn broadly while the warehouses beyond are sharp, an effect borrowed from photographs, with cropped forms and flat zones recalling the Japanese prints he had begun to collect. The working boat and the wharf are the London he chose, the river of trade rather than monuments. Published in the Thames Set in 1871, the print also appears on the wall behind his mother in his most famous portrait.
The vessels A Thames working boat moored at Black Lion Wharf among the riverside warehouses of the London docks; not a named vessel.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Ship icebound in the frozen Thames Unnamed
The Thames in Ice (The Twenty-fifth of December, 1860, on the Thames)
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington (F1901.107a-b)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the winter of 1860 the Thames had been frozen for weeks, and at Christmas, according to the Pennells, Whistler painted it in three days from an inn at Cherry Gardens. It may be the picture of the Thames his mother called unfinished, turned down by the Royal Academy in 1861. By 1862 it was complete, and it was shown at the Academy as The Twenty-fifth of December, 1860, on the Thames. The ship moored in the ice gives the frozen river its meaning: a working port brought to a standstill, masts and rigging dark against a cold sky, men aloft in her shrouds.
The vessels A square-rigged sailing ship moored in the frozen Thames at Christmas 1860, with other shipping behind; not a named vessel.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk
Image: James McNeill Whistler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Shipping in the Pool of London off Wapping Unnamed
Wapping, 1860 to 1864
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1982.76.8)
Medium Oil on canvas
Whistler began this riverside picture in 1860, working in secret down at Rotherhithe, lost months to rheumatic fever in 1861, and showed it at the Royal Academy in 1864 as Wapping. He told Fantin-Latour it showed three people on a balcony over the Thames, and a girl who was damned difficult to paint. Beyond them, he wrote, lay a row of large boats, one unloading coal, the mast and yellow sail of a lighter and the bowsprit of another ship whose ropes cross the whole picture. The ships make it the Thames of work and trade, seen from a riverside balcony.
“a girl who is damned difficult to paint”
The vessels Large sailing ships, a collier unloading coal and lighters on the Thames, as Whistler described them to Fantin-Latour; a visitor in 1863 saw the river in the picture as one jam of vessels. The ships are not named.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk · National Gallery of Art
Harbours and light · Print
Daubigny's floating studio Named ship
The Boat Studio, from The Boat Trip (Le Bateau atelier, from Voyage en bateau), 1861
Artist Charles-François Daubigny (1817 to 1878)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1927.2633a)
Medium Etching on ivory laid paper
Before Monet had his studio boat, Daubigny had his. To paint the river landscapes that suited his temperament, the Art Institute explains, he built a floating studio that could be moved to the best points of view and to catch the changing effects of natural light. His etched series The Boat Trip records that life afloat, an early example of the open-air practice the Impressionists would embrace wholeheartedly, and Monet followed his example at Argenteuil. This modest boat, cabin and all, is an ancestor of a whole school of river painting.
The real ship Daubigny's floating studio boat, the Botin; Monet later fitted out his own studio boat on its example.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · Wikipedia · krollermuller.nl
Image: Charles-François Daubigny, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Thames sailing barges moored and under way off Battersea Unnamed
Battersea Reach, 1862 to 1863
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington, Corcoran Collection (2014.79.35)
Medium Oil on canvas
Whistler painted this from the window of his house in Lindsey Row, Chelsea, looking across the Thames to the factories and warehouses of the Battersea bank. Along the shore at right half a dozen sailing barges lie moored with red or black sails furled, while another barge and smaller boats move on the river, which is streaked grey and white with touches of pale blue. On the embankment a woman in white recalls his portraits of Joanna Hiffernan. Whistler listed it as an afternoon or evening effect, and the barges' furled sails give the grey river its warm notes.
“a most gorgeous bit of colour”
The vessels Thames sailing barges, half a dozen moored by the shore with red or black sails furled and another under way, below the factories and warehouses of the Battersea bank; none is identified.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk · National Gallery of Art
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing vessels at the harbour mouth, Honfleur Unnamed
Entrance to the Port of Honfleur, 1863 to 1864
Artist Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819 to 1891)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1968.614)
Medium Oil on canvas
Jongkind and Boudin brought a new spirit to the painting of the coast, and the Art Institute recalls that Monet claimed it was Jongkind who educated his eye. This view of the harbour entrance at Honfleur shows why. Its content, palette and technique fed directly into Impressionism, and although Jongkind painted his final compositions in the studio, he worked to keep the freshness of the outdoor sketch. The vessels at the harbour mouth are the reason for the scene, working craft coming and going where the Seine meets the sea.
“educated his eye”
The vessels Working sailing craft at the entrance to the port of Honfleur on the Seine estuary; not individual named vessels.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Image: Johan Barthold Jongkind, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Rowing boat off La Pointe de la Hève Unnamed
La Pointe de la Hève, Sainte-Adresse, 1864
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG6565)
Medium Oil on canvas
Monet was in his early twenties when he painted this wintry beach near Le Havre, where he had spent his childhood. Three figures in a boat row towards us, wrapped up against the cold, smoke rises from a cottage on the cliff, and sailing boats race along the horizon, their dark sails against a glimmer of light. The National Gallery thinks it was a study for his Salon picture of 1865, now in Fort Worth, where he replaced the rowing boat with a cart and horses. The little boat is the heartbeat of an empty shore, painted with broad strokes that hint at the Impressionist to come.
“three figures in a boat rowing towards us”
The vessels A small rowing boat off the shingle beach of Sainte-Adresse, once a small fishing port, with sailing boats on the horizon; the vessels are not named.
Sources National Gallery
Harbours and light · Painting
Side-wheel packet steamer in the Channel off Boulogne Unnamed
Sea View, Calm Weather (Vue de mer, temps calme), 1864
Artist Édouard Manet (1832 to 1883)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1922.425)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in Paris from sketches made on a family holiday at Boulogne-sur-Mer, this is one of Manet's earliest paintings of the sea, a subject he would return to again and again. The brushwork is bold, almost calligraphic, yet the Art Institute points out that every vessel can still be identified by type. Right of centre a side-wheel packet steamer heads up the Channel, leaving the slower sailing boats in its wake. It is a small picture of an age in change, steam overtaking sail, caught in a few broad strokes.
“a side-wheel packet steamer heads up the English Channel, leaving slower sailing boats in its wake”
The vessels A side-wheel packet steamer and sailing boats in the English Channel off Boulogne, identified by type by the Art Institute; the vessels are not named.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Art Institute of Chicago, where the original is kept. Photo: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boat on the beach at Trouville Unnamed
The Fishing Boat, 1865
Artist Gustave Courbet (1819 to 1877)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (99.11.3)
Medium Oil on canvas
Courbet spent the autumn of 1865 at Trouville with Whistler and boasted to his father that he had painted thirty-five pictures in a very short time. Many painters of the coast, Isabey, Jongkind, Boudin, had put boats into their beach scenes as incidents. Courbet did something plainer and bolder: he made a single fishing boat, rigged and loaded with its gear, the whole subject. The boat sits heavy and real on the sand, a portrait of a working object by the great realist. In 1899 it became the first Courbet to enter the Met.
“thirty-five paintings”
The vessels A fishing boat of the Trouville coast, rigged and filled with equipment; not an identified vessel.
Sources The Met
Image: Gustave Courbet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Neutral and Spanish warships and merchant ships in Valparaiso Bay Unnamed
Crepuscule in Flesh Colour and Green: Valparaiso, 1866
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London (N05065)
Medium Oil on canvas
Whistler sailed for Chile in February 1866 and reached Valparaiso on 12 March, where a Spanish squadron was blockading the port and British, American and French ships lay as neutral onlookers. The Tate dates this canvas to the evening of 30 March, when the neutral fleets began to withdraw before the Spanish bombardment the next day. The ships sit in a pale green dusk under bars of flesh-coloured cloud, still and ghostly, the calm before the attack. Whistler later remembered how, when morning came, they sailed out to the open sea until the Spanish fleet alone remained.
“they sailed out into the open sea, until the Spanish fleet alone remained.”
The vessels Neutral British, American and French warships and merchant ships in Valparaiso Bay in March 1866, during the war between Spain and the South American alliance; the Spanish squadron bombarded the city on 31 March.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk
Image: James McNeill Whistler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Small boats in a heavy Channel sea Unnamed
The Green Wave (La Vague verte), c. 1866 to 1867
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (29.100.111)
Medium Oil on canvas
Boats work a steep green sea under a high horizon, and the picture is all about their struggle against the water. When it was shown at the 1879 Impressionist exhibition a critic called it directly influenced by Manet, and the Met agrees: the handling and the high horizon echo Manet's paintings of the American warship Kearsarge, which Monet may have seen in Paris in 1865 and 1867. So this rough sea is also a young painter answering an older one, taking the Kearsarge's bold composition and giving it to the working boats of the Normandy coast.
“directly influenced by Manet”
The vessels Small sailing boats of the Normandy coast, where Monet painted in 1866 and 1867; not identified.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Ships at anchor in Valparaiso Bay by night Unnamed
Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Valparaiso Bay, 1866 to 1874
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington (F1909.127a-b)
Medium Oil on canvas
Whistler began this view of Valparaiso during his stay in Chile from March to September 1866, when a Spanish squadron was blockading the port, but the Glasgow catalogue shows it was almost certainly finished in the 1870s. It was probably not a nocturne at first; it became one as he reworked it, and he may still have been at it in July 1874. It was first shown in Brighton in 1875 as a Nocturne in blue and silver. The ships at anchor turn into dark shapes in a blue night pricked with gold lights, a memory of a harbour at war softened by time into music.
“in its early state it was probably not a nocturne at all, but became one as it was reworked over subsequent years”
The vessels Ships at anchor in Valparaiso Bay, the main harbour of Chile, which in 1866 held a Spanish blockading squadron and neutral British, American and French fleets; the vessels are not named.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk
Image: James McNeill Whistler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boats at Sainte-Adresse Unnamed
The Beach at Sainte-Adresse (La Plage de Sainte-Adresse), 1867
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1933.439)
Medium Oil on canvas
Monet grew up in this area and saw the railway turn a small fishing village into a resort. Here the working boats hold the foreground: dark-sailed fishing boats drifting offshore, others on the beach with groups of fishermen and their gear. Between the beached hulls sit two fashionable visitors, the man peering through a telescope, and that small contrast makes it a picture of modern life. Conservation research at Chicago found Monet first included more tourists and yachts, then painted them out to give the fishermen, the life he knew best, the stage.
The vessels Dark-sailed fishing boats of the Sainte-Adresse shore, some drifting offshore and others on the beach; by 1867 the railway was turning the village into a seaside resort.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Regatta yachts off Sainte-Adresse Unnamed
Regatta at Sainte-Adresse (Les Régates à Sainte-Adresse), 1867
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.30.4)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the summer of 1867 Monet wrote that he was painting the regattas of Le Havre, with figures on the beach and the outer harbour covered with small sails. This is that picture: a sunny high tide, well-dressed spectators on the shingle, and a scatter of white sails leaning into the breeze. The yachts are the pulse of the painting, bright triangles that pull the eye out across the water. The Met reads it as a pair with The Beach at Sainte-Adresse in Chicago, where fishing boats sit hauled up under a grey sky: leisure and labour on the same stretch of coast.
“Among the seascapes, I am doing the regattas of Le Havre with many figures on the beach and the outer harbor covered with small sails.”
The vessels Pleasure boats racing in a regatta off Sainte-Adresse, a well-to-do suburb of Le Havre; none is identified.
Sources The Met · Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Painting
Rowing boat moored on the Seine at Bennecourt Unnamed
On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt (Au bord de l'eau, Bennecourt), 1868
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1922.427)
Medium Oil on canvas
Camille Doncieux, Monet's future wife, sits on an island in the Seine looking across to the hamlet of Gloton, from which, the Art Institute suggests, she and Monet had rowed. The little green boat drawn up at her feet is the quiet witness of that crossing, and of a short stay in a cheap rural retreat that Émile Zola had recommended. It is the only painting to survive from that time. Traces of earlier paint suggest that Camille first held a child, presumably their baby Jean. The boat, the water and the reflected houses make it a picture of a young family's summer on the river.
The vessels A small rowing boat of the kind in which, the Art Institute presumes, Camille and Monet rowed across from Gloton to the island; not a named vessel.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Painting
Moored hire rowing boats at La Grenouillère Unnamed
Bathers at La Grenouillère (Bain à la Grenouillère), 1869
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG6456)
Medium Oil on canvas
In front of us, the National Gallery notes, nine rowing boats lie moored in two rough lines. Most have two planks across them for seats and some have a pair of oars resting on them. Monet did not describe them in detail: thick lines of paint give their shapes, in greens and browns with dashes of orange and blue. The empty boats say everything about the place, a popular weekend retreat on the Seine waiting for its rowers, painted in the summer of 1869 in the quick manner that was an important step towards Impressionism.
“Most of the rowing boats have 2 planks across them as seats, and some have a pair of oars resting on them.”
The vessels Rowing boats of La Grenouillère, a resort on the Seine about 12 kilometres west of Paris that offered boating, fishing and swimming; the vessels are not named.
Sources National Gallery · The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Two small boats at low tide, Étretat Unnamed
The Calm Sea (La Mer calme), 1869
Artist Gustave Courbet (1819 to 1877)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (29.100.566)
Medium Oil on canvas
At Étretat in August 1869 Courbet looked out over the Channel at low tide and painted almost nothing: an immense sky, a thin band of water, a strip of sand, and two small boats the sea has left behind. The Met notes how unusual this stillness is among his marine paintings of the period, which are dominated by crashing waves. The two boats are what make the emptiness readable. They give the eye a resting place and the picture its scale, small human things waiting for the tide under a sky that fills most of the canvas.
The vessels Two small boats left on the shore at Étretat by the receding tide; not identified.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Hired rowing boats at La Grenouillère Unnamed
La Grenouillère, 1869
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (29.100.112)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the summer of 1869 Monet and Renoir set up their easels at La Grenouillère, a boating and bathing resort on the Seine not far from Paris, where all classes mingled. The rental rowing boats moored in the foreground anchor the picture, their hulls broken into quick strokes of light on moving water. Monet called the scene his dream, a painting of the baths for which he had made only some bad sketches. In its staccato dashes of blue, green and black, five years before the movement had a name, these little hire boats were already an Impressionist subject.
“I do have a dream, a painting, the baths of La Grenouillère, for which I have made some bad sketches”
The vessels Rental rowing boats at the Grenouillère resort on the Seine; none is identified.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Hire boats at La Grenouillère Unnamed
La Grenouillère, 1869
Artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 to 1919)
Where to see it Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
Medium Oil on canvas
In the summer of 1869 Renoir and Monet painted side by side at La Grenouillère, the floating restaurant and boat hire on the Seine at Croissy near Bougival. Renoir's view centres on the Camembert, a little island with a single tree linked by gangplanks to the restaurant and the island. The rowing boats in the foreground are the reason the place existed: the resort, reached by train from Paris, offered boating, fishing and swimming. Set beside Monet's versions, it shows two young painters discovering, in the same place, how to paint moving water.
The vessels Rowing boats of the boat hire at La Grenouillère, a resort on the Seine offering boating, fishing and swimming; the vessels are not named.
Sources Wikipedia · National Gallery
Image: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boats moored at the quays of Lorient Unnamed
The Harbor at Lorient (Le Port de Lorient), 1869
Artist Berthe Morisot (1841 to 1895)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
In June 1869 Morisot arrived at Lorient for two months near her sister Edma, newly married to a naval officer attached to the port. She painted Edma seated on a parapet under a parasol above the outer harbour, with fishing boats moored at the quays in soft browns and greys. Back in Paris she gave the canvas to Édouard Manet, and his admiration marked a turning point: from then on he began to treat her as a talented artist and to consult her. The quiet boats and the long reach of water hold a sister's new life in a naval town.
The vessels Fishing boats and sailing vessels moored along the quays of Lorient, painted from the Quai de Rohan with the Tour de la Découverte in view; the vessels are not named.
Sources Wikipedia · National Gallery of Art
Harbours and light · Painting
Boats on the Achterzaan at Zaandam Unnamed
Houses on the Achterzaan, 1871
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1975.1.196)
Medium Oil on canvas
On Daubigny's advice Monet went to Zaandam in 1871 and found a painter's paradise of windmills, water and boats. He wrote to Pissarro about the enchanting boats and friendly Dutchmen, and this view along the Achterzaan catches that delight in limpid water and hazy light. The Met notes the limited palette of greens and the light-dappled water of a small Dutch port. The river craft are part of what drew him there, a working waterway seen with the fresh eye of a visitor.
“There are the most amusing things everywhere: hundreds of windmills and enchanting boats, extremely friendly Dutchmen”
The vessels Boats on the Achterzaan at Zaandam, a river Monet found full of windmills and enchanting boats; none is identified.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
A lighter or small barge moored on the Thames at night Unnamed
Nocturne: Blue and Silver, Chelsea, 1871
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London (T01571)
Medium Oil on wood
Whistler's mother wrote that one summer afternoon in 1871 she was not strong enough to sit for her portrait, so he took her on the river; when they returned the Thames glowed an hour before sunset and he rushed to his easel, painting until the bright moon faced them and she urged him to make it a moonlight picture. Shown that year as Harmony in Blue-Green: Moonlight, it reduces the river to a few veils of colour, with the influence of Japanese art in its restricted palette and its butterfly signature set like a seal. At left a long, low lighter lies moored near the shore, a small light at her bow reflected in the water.
“oh Jemie dear it is yet light enough for you to see to make this a moonlight picture of the Thames.”
The vessels A long lighter or small barge, very low in the water, moored near the shore; the Battersea bank opposite Whistler's house was lined with chemical works, factories, wharves, timber yards and mills.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk · Wikipedia · Tate
Image: James McNeill Whistler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Thames tugboats at Westminster Unnamed
The Thames below Westminster (La Tamise et le Parlement), c. 1871
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG6399)
Medium Oil on canvas
Monet spent 1870 to 1871 in London and fell for its fog, which, he later said, gave the city its magnificent breadth. In this view of Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament, the tugboats on the river show a working Thames, part of what the National Gallery reads as a painting about modernity, alongside the new Embankment and St Thomas' Hospital. Dark little steamers move through broken strokes of water while men on a jetty dismantle scaffolding. It was his only view of Parliament on that first visit; almost three decades later he came back for a whole series.
“Without the fog, London would not be a beautiful city. It's the fog that gives it its magnificent breadth.”
The vessels Steam tugboats on the Thames at Westminster, which the National Gallery says underline a working river essential to the city's commercial life; the vessels are not named.
Sources National Gallery
Harbours and light · Painting
Holiday rowing boats on the Seine Unnamed
The Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne (Le Pont de Villeneuve-la-Garenne), 1872
Artist Alfred Sisley (1839 to 1899)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (64.287)
Medium Oil on canvas
Sisley was drawn to new bridges, emblems of modernity, and here he shows the cast iron and stone suspension bridge of 1844 at a close, dramatic angle. What brings the scene to life, the Met says, are the holidaymakers on the Seine and along the bank. A man stands in a small boat by the great stone pier while other boats lie drawn up along the shore, and the water is broken into flat strokes of high-keyed colour. Against the engineering of the bridge the little boats are loose, bright and human, the pleasure of a day on the river.
The vessels Small rowing boats of the holidaymakers the Met describes on the Seine at Villeneuve-la-Garenne; not individual named vessels.
Harbours and light · Painting
Rowing boats in the outer harbour of Le Havre Unnamed
Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant), 1872
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris (inv. 4014)
Medium Oil on canvas
Monet painted the port of Le Havre quickly, from his hotel window on an autumn dawn in 1872, and a whole movement took its name from the result. The two small rowing boats in the foreground are the only dark, solid things in the picture: silhouettes set against a hazy outer harbour of cranes, smokestacks and masts. They give the red sun something to rise over and the grey water a sense of scale and movement. Asked for a catalogue title in 1874, Monet said the canvas could hardly pass for a view of Le Havre and called it Impression, and the critic Louis Leroy seized on the word.
“Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.”
The vessels Two small rowing boats in the foreground, with fishing boats in the middle ground and tall-masted sailing ships, steamship funnels and cranes in the outer harbour of Le Havre behind; none is identified.
Sources marmottan.fr · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Barge drifting under Old Battersea Bridge Unnamed
Nocturne: Blue and Gold, Old Battersea Bridge, c. 1872 to 1875
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London (N01959)
Medium Oil on canvas
Moonlight lies on the Thames, the dark pier and parapet of old Battersea Bridge cut across the scene, and a barge drifts from beneath it into water starred with golden lights from the houses on the banks. So a critic described the picture in 1876. The barge with its lone standing figure is the only moving thing in a world reduced to blue and gold, a small human presence under the great timber structure. The Albert Bridge glimmers lit behind, so Whistler probably finished the picture after it opened in August 1873. It is the Thames turned into music.
The vessels A Thames barge drifting on the tide under Old Battersea Bridge, as the 1876 description in the Whistler catalogue puts it; not a named vessel.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk · Tate
Image: James McNeill Whistler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Shipping at anchor in Southampton Water Unnamed
Nocturne: Blue and Gold, Southampton Water, 1872
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1900.52)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the early 1870s Whistler took a radical step towards abstraction with his Nocturnes, pictures that hold the stillness of evening and call on the language of music. In this one, an inlet of the Channel near Southampton, the subject is swallowed by the approaching night. Large ships appear only as ghostly shapes, and the only brightness comes from the reflections of lights and the broken orb of the moon. The ships are there to be almost lost: dark forms that give the harmony of blue and gold its weight and its hush.
“Large shipping vessels appear as ghostly shapes, reduced to shadowy forms by the deepening twilight”
The vessels Large shipping vessels in Southampton Water, an inlet of the English Channel, as the Art Institute describes them; not individual named ships.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Image: James McNeill Whistler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Racing sailing boats at Argenteuil Unnamed
Regattas at Argenteuil (Régates à Argenteuil), c. 1872
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 2778)
Medium Oil on canvas
Monet lived at Argenteuil from December 1871 to 1878, and about half of the roughly 170 canvases he painted there show the banks of the Seine. There the river widens into a basin, the broadest stretch of water in the region, and racing boats drew competitors and Sunday crowds from Paris by train. In this canvas the sails and their reflections are broken into the fragmented stroke that would define Impressionism two years before the movement was named. Caillebotte owned it and bequeathed it to the nation. The boats are the reason the picture exists, shapes that shimmer twice, in the air and in the river.
“It's appalling, this light that drifts off and takes the colour with it.”
The vessels Small racing sailing boats on the Argenteuil basin of the Seine, a boating centre reached from Paris by train; not individual named vessels.
Sources Musée d’Orsay · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing fishing boats off Berck Unnamed
Boats at Berck-sur-Mer, 1873
Artist Édouard Manet (1832 to 1883)
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1940.534)
Medium Oil on fabric
At sixteen, having failed the entrance examination for the naval academy, Manet went to sea as an apprentice on a training ship and sailed as far as Rio de Janeiro. The sea held his imagination ever after. In 1873, staying at Berck near Boulogne, he rapidly sketched the sails of countless boats dancing in the wind on blue-green waves flecked with white. Cleveland notes the slight curve he gave the horizon, which makes a small canvas feel like infinite space. The boats are pure movement here, sails caught in the act of leaning.
“he rapidly sketched the sails of the countless ships that dance in the wind on blue-green waves highlighted with white”
The vessels Small sailing boats off Berck on the Channel coast, as Cleveland describes; the vessels are not named.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing vessels in the inner harbour of Le Havre Unnamed
The Museum at Le Havre, 1873
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG6527)
Medium Oil on canvas
On a trip home from Argenteuil, Monet stood on the inner harbour wall of Le Havre and faced the museum of fine arts, a building of 1845 destroyed in the Second World War. The boats almost hide it. Their oversize sails are hastily brushed abstract shapes set against the arched windows, and their reflections break up on rippling water, in greyish blues and browns warmed with touches of orange. Monet left out the ground under his feet, so we seem to float among the boats. The Italian painter Giuseppe De Nittis, who exhibited alongside Monet with the Impressionists, bought it.
“the sails that almost obscure the architecture are hastily brushed in”
The vessels Sailing boats moored in the inner harbour of Le Havre, then France's most important transatlantic port, as the National Gallery notes; the vessels are not named.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Claude Monet; photo Carlomartini86, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Pleasure sailing boat at Argenteuil Unnamed
Boating (En bateau), 1874
Artist Édouard Manet (1832 to 1883)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (29.100.115)
Medium Oil on canvas
Manet spent the summer of 1874 at Gennevilliers, crossing the Seine to paint with Monet and Renoir at Argenteuil, and here he climbs aboard. We are in the boat itself, with a sailor in white at the tiller, perhaps his brother-in-law Rodolphe Leenhoff, and a woman in a veiled hat, the gunwale and the sail cutting the canvas into bold diagonals. The Met notes how Manet borrowed the broad planes of Japanese prints. There is no shore and no horizon, only blue water, so the boat becomes the whole world of the picture. Mary Cassatt called it the last word in painting.
“the last word in painting”
The vessels A small pleasure sailing boat on the Seine at Argenteuil; not an identified vessel.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Pleasure sailing boats moored at Argenteuil Unnamed
The Bridge at Argenteuil (Le Pont d'Argenteuil), 1874
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1983.1.24)
Medium Oil on canvas
The National Gallery of Art describes what happens as you walk towards this picture. From ten feet or so away the strokes blend into a convincing view of the Seine and the pleasure boats that drew tourists to Argenteuil. Close up, each dab stays separate and the scene dissolves into a mosaic of brilliant, unblended blue, red and other colours. The moored boat by the bridge, its masts bare, is the centre of that effect: a solid object from a distance, pure paint up close.
“the pleasure boats that drew tourists to Argenteuil”
The vessels Pleasure sailing boats on the Seine at Argenteuil, the kind the National Gallery of Art says drew tourists to the town; the vessels are not named.
Sources National Gallery of Art
Harbours and light · Painting
Monet's studio boat Unnamed
Claude Monet Painting in his Studio (Claude Monet peignant dans son atelier), 1874
Artist Édouard Manet (1832 to 1883)
Where to see it Neue Pinakothek, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich
Medium Oil on canvas
During a summer spent with Monet at Argenteuil in 1874, Manet painted his friend at work aboard his floating studio, with his wife beside him in the cabin. The boat, an old one Monet had bought around 1871 or 1872 to observe the light on the Seine, becomes a small stage for the new painting itself: easel, straw hat and white awning on the bright river. Simon Abrahams of Every Painter Paints Himself sees in the row of M shapes along the awning a play on the two painters' names. It is a picture of a friendship conducted on the water.
“That row of Ms decorating the awning is a clear reference to Manet in Monet.”
The vessels An old boat Monet acquired in the early 1870s and used as a floating studio to observe the light on the Seine; Daubigny also had a studio boat, called the Botin.
Sources Wikipedia · everypainterpaintshimself.com
Harbours and light · Painting
Racing rowing boats at Molesey Regatta Unnamed
Regatta at Molesey (Les Régates à Molesey), 1874
Artist Alfred Sisley (1839 to 1899)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 2787)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the summer of 1874 the collector Jean-Baptiste Faure paid for Sisley to spend four months in England and went with him. Sisley settled at Hampton Court and painted the Molesey Regatta, founded only the year before, looking upstream from Molesey Boat Club with the new Island Hotel on Tagg's Island behind. In cloudier England his pictures became brighter and more festive. Flags stream overhead while a long line of racing boats pulls along the river, the Thames sport seen with a French painter's eye for light.
The vessels Racing rowing boats at the Molesey Regatta on the Thames, begun by an amateur sportsman in 1873; not individual named boats.
Sources Musée d’Orsay · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Monet's studio boat Unnamed
The Studio Boat (Le Bateau-atelier), 1874
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo (KM 111.222)
Medium Oil on canvas
From 1871 to 1878 Monet lived at Argenteuil, and following the example of Daubigny he had a boat built so he could paint the river and its light from the water itself. Here the boat is the subject, moored between two poles and quite still, with a figure just visible in the cabin, probably Monet. The river mirrors the boat, the trees and the sky together, and the Kröller-Müller reads it as an impression of calm on a summer day. It is a portrait of the tool that made so many of his river paintings possible, floating in the very light it was built to study.
The vessels Monet's floating studio at Argenteuil, a boat with a plank cabin modelled on Daubigny's studio boat; he acquired it in the early 1870s, and he painted it both at Argenteuil and later at Giverny.
Sources krollermuller.nl · Google Arts & Culture · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing ships and dinghies at the Quai des Chartrons, Bordeaux Unnamed
View of Bordeaux, from the Quai des Chartrons (Vue de Bordeaux, depuis le quai des Chartrons), 1874
Artist Eugène Boudin (1824 to 1898)
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1986.73)
Medium Oil on fabric
Boudin first came to Bordeaux in 1873 as the guest of the collector Arthur Bourges, and between 1874 and 1876 he painted its harbour and docks. This view looks at the working quays, where goods were loaded and unloaded and sailors rowed out in small dinghies to the larger ships they served. The low horizon gives most of the canvas to sky, and the masts rise against it in verticals and diagonals. Cleveland notes the traces of earlier paint in the rigging of the small ship at the left, where Boudin shifted the lines as he worked. It was the year he was invited to exhibit with the future Impressionists.
The vessels Square-rigged sailing ships, barges and small dinghies at the working quays of Bordeaux, as Cleveland describes; not individual named vessels.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art
Harbours and light · Painting
Sand dredgers' boats on the Seine at Port-Marly Unnamed
The Seine at Port-Marly, Piles of Sand (La Seine à Port-Marly, tas de sable), 1875
Artist Alfred Sisley (1839 to 1899)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1933.1177)
Medium Oil on canvas
Sisley lived at Marly-le-Roi from 1875 to 1878, and the Art Institute thinks this may be the most original of all his landscapes there. Instead of weekend leisure it shows the working week: men dredging sand from the Seine to make way for barge traffic, the sand heaped high on the bank. Their flat boats are the tools of that labour. At a time when his friends painted the river as a playground for boating and dining, Sisley painted it as a working road and the men who lived by it.
“workers dredging sand to facilitate barge traffic”
The vessels Flat river boats used by the men dredging sand from the Seine at Port-Marly to ease barge traffic, as the Art Institute describes; the vessels are not named.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Painting
Orange rowing skiff on the Seine at Chatou Unnamed
The Skiff (La Yole), 1875
Artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 to 1919)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG6478)
Medium Oil on canvas
On the Seine, probably near Chatou, fashionably dressed women drift in a rowing boat, with a sailing boat beyond, a riverside villa and a steam train crossing a bridge. The National Gallery points to Renoir's daring colour: no black, no earth tones, bright unmixed paint straight from the tube, and above all an orange skiff laid against dark blue water, complementary colours that make each other blaze. The long hull gives the picture its horizontal structure, offset by the white sail and the reeds. The boat is the flame at the centre of a picture of summer heat and light.
“summer heat and light”
The vessels A skiff or small gig, as the National Gallery calls it, on a stretch of the Seine popular for recreational boating; not a named vessel.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
River barges on the Oise at Pontoise Unnamed
Barges at Pontoise (Péniches à Pontoise), 1876
Artist Camille Pissarro (1830 to 1903)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1979.135.16)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1876 Pissarro painted several views of the barges that carried goods along the Oise to the busy port of Pontoise, the town where he lived for years. This is the only one to bring the boats up close. They are laid in with bold strokes of orange and green, so freely that the figure on the prow of the left-hand barge is hard to make out. The barges are the working heart of the town's river, and twenty years later Pissarro would come back to the same theme in the harbours of Rouen and Paris.
The vessels Barges that carried goods along the Oise to the port of Pontoise; none is identified.
Sources The Met
Image: Camille Pissarro, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Périssoires on the Yerres Unnamed
Skiffs (Périssoires sur l'Yerres), 1877
Artist Gustave Caillebotte (1848 to 1894)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1985.64.6)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1877 and 1878 Caillebotte painted swimmers, fishermen, rowers and canoeists at his family's estate on the little river Yerres. This canvas was shown at the fourth Impressionist exhibition in 1879 as Périssoires sur l'Yerres, flat-bottomed canoes on the Yerres. A paddler in a straw hat comes straight at us, his long double paddle flashing yellow, while two more canoes follow down the shaded green river. Caillebotte, who later designed his own yachts and won races, already paints these slender hulls with a sailor's eye, their rhythm repeated across the water.
The vessels Périssoires, the flat-bottomed canoes of the Yerres named in the title under which the painting was first exhibited; the boats are not named.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Rowing boat on the lake in the Bois de Boulogne Unnamed
Summer's Day, c. 1879
Artist Berthe Morisot (1841 to 1895)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London
Medium Oil on canvas
Probably the picture Morisot showed at the Impressionist exhibition of 1880 as The Lake in the Bois de Boulogne, this canvas puts two fashionable young women in a boat floating placidly on a lake. Morisot's brush is deliberately loose, to catch a moment as it passes, and the National Gallery points to the carriage glimpsed on the far shore. The boat is a small stage for modern leisure in the heart of Paris, holding its two sitters, professional models who appear in other Morisot pictures, in a haze of green, blue and white.
“two fashionable young women in a boat floating placidly on a lake”
The vessels A small boat on the lake in the Bois de Boulogne, the setting the National Gallery suggests for the picture; not a named vessel.
Sources National Gallery
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing boats in the harbour of Naples Unnamed
The Bay of Naples (La Baie de Naples), 1881
Artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 to 1919)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (56.135.8)
Medium Oil on canvas
A corner of balcony at lower left shows where Renoir stood, above the harbour of Naples, with Vesuvius sending smoke into the sky. The southern Italian light inspired him to paint the view again at another time of day, in a second version now at the Clark. The harbour boats, their lateen yards slanting across the bright water, give life to a view the Met calls iconic, while carts and crowds move along the waterfront. In 1883 the sugar refiner James Duncan bought it, the first Impressionist picture acquired by a Scottish collector.
“the first Impressionist picture acquired by a Scottish collector”
The vessels Sailing boats and harbour craft in the Bay of Naples; the vessels are not named.
Sources The Met
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Harbours and light · Painting
Rochefort's escape boat, with the collier P.C.E. on the horizon Unnamed
The Escape of Rochefort (L'Évasion de Rochefort), c. 1881
Artist Édouard Manet (1832 to 1883)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 1984 158)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1874 the journalist Henri Rochefort, imprisoned for his part in the Commune, escaped by sea from the penal colony of New Caledonia with his companions. Manet waited until the 1880 amnesty allowed Rochefort home before painting it, meaning it for the Salon of 1881 as a history painting of his own time. In this smaller of two versions Rochefort sits at the stern of a tiny dinghy bobbing through the waves, almost lost in an electric, phosphorescent sea, with the rescue ship on the horizon. The boat carries the whole drama: vulnerable, crowded, bound for freedom across a sea that fills the canvas.
“electric, phosphorescent sea”
The vessels The escapees were picked up off Nouméa in March 1874 by the P.C.E., a three-masted collier under Captain Law, and carried to Newcastle, New South Wales, and on to Sydney.
Sources Musée d’Orsay · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, where the original is kept. Photo: Gonzalezpascalphotos, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boat on the beach at Scheveningen Unnamed
Beach at Scheveningen in Stormy Weather (Zeegezicht bij Scheveningen), 1882
Artist Vincent van Gogh (1853 to 1890)
Where to see it Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Medium Oil
In August 1882, only months after his first paintings, Van Gogh went out to Scheveningen in a storm. He told Theo the wind was so strong he could barely stay on his feet or see through the clouds of sand, and some of that sand is still caught in the paint. At that spot, he wrote, there was a fishing boat, the last in the row, and several dark figures. The boat is the fixed point in a picture of wild weather, with fishwives watching as men with horses and a cart prepare to haul it ashore. Stolen from the museum in 2002, the painting was recovered near Naples in 2016.
“At that spot there was a fishing-boat, the last in the row, and several dark figures.”
The vessels A fishing boat of the Scheveningen beach, brought ashore by men with horses and a cart pulling on a rope; not a named vessel.
Sources Wikipedia · Van Gogh Letters
Image: Vincent van Gogh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boat and caloges on the beach at Étretat Unnamed
Étretat, Rough Sea (Étretat, mer agitée), 1883
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (B 647)
Medium Oil on canvas
In February 1883 Monet spent a winter stay at Étretat and painted some thirty canvases there; this one was framed from a hotel window. Nacreous waves, driven by a violent wind, run wild in rapid, vibrant loops against the cliff, and a curtain of rain streaks the distant sky. On the narrow strip of beach where the boats land, the fishermen's world holds firm: two men beside their boat, and three caloges. Without the boats this would be pure spectacle; with them it becomes the view of people who wait for the weather to let them work.
The vessels A fishing boat drawn up on the narrow landing beach at Étretat beside three caloges; not an identified vessel.
Sources mba-lyon.fr
Harbours and light · Painting
Rowing boat flying the tricolour, and sailing boats on the Seine Unnamed
Bathers at Asnières (Une baignade, Asnières), 1884
Artist Georges Seurat (1859 to 1891)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG3908)
Medium Oil on canvas
Working men and boys rest on the bank of the Seine in an industrial suburb, still as sculpture in hazy sunlight, with the factory chimneys of Clichy beyond. On the water the other Paris goes by: a bourgeois couple with parasol and top hat is ferried across the river in a boat bearing the French tricolour, rowed by an oarsman whom the National Gallery calls the only person in the picture who is working. Recreational sailing boats glide further off. The boats carry the painting's quiet social contrast. Seurat meant it for the Salon of 1884, which rejected it.
“the only person in the picture who is working”
The vessels A small boat ferrying passengers across the Seine and recreational sailing boats between Asnières and Courbevoie, as the National Gallery describes; the vessels are not named.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Skagen fishing boats setting out Unnamed
Men of Skagen Setting Out for Night Fishing: Late Summer Evening (Skagboere går ud på nattefiskeri. Sildig sommeraften), 1884
Artist Peder Severin Krøyer (1851 to 1909)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 1977 204)
Medium Oil on canvas
Krøyer paints fishermen of Skagen putting out for a night's fishing at the end of a late-summer day. Two open boats lie in the calm shallows, men aboard hauling up the pale sails, while the moon hangs in a still, silvery sky and a distant sail shows on the horizon. On the wet sand in the foreground lie rays. The boats carry the day into the night: it is the painter's evening light and the fishermen's working hour at once.
The vessels Open wooden sailing boats of the Skagen fishermen setting out for night fishing; none is identified.
Sources Wikidata · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Peder Severin Krøyer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Beached fishing boats and caloges at Étretat Unnamed
Boats on the Beach at Étretat (Bateaux sur la plage à Étretat), 1885
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1947.95)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bad autumn weather kept Monet indoors at the Hôtel Blanquet, and on 24 November 1885 he told Alice Hoschedé that he had worked in his room on his caloges, retired fishing boats covered with tarred planks and used for storage, in the rain. This is that picture. The brightly coloured hulls of the beached craft give scale to the whole scene, and the wet surfaces are laid in pastel blues, pinks, purples and greens. It is the pair of The Departure of the Boats, painted from the same window: the fleet at rest, then the fleet going out.
“In the afternoon, I worked in my room on my caloges”
The vessels Beached fishing boats at Étretat, and caloges: retired fishing boats covered with tarred planks and used for storage, as Monet's letter and the Art Institute explain. Not individual named boats.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boats leaving the beach at Étretat Unnamed
The Departure of the Boats, Étretat (Le Départ des bateaux, Étretat), 1885
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1922.428)
Medium Oil on canvas
Kept indoors by bad autumn weather at Étretat, Monet painted from his window at the Hôtel Blanquet. On 24 November 1885 he told Alice Hoschedé he had worked in the rain on the caloges, the old boats roofed over for storage, and then tried a picture of the boats departing. This is that picture: the working boats sliding off the beach into a wet, soft-coloured sea, groups of figures sketched in quick strokes at the water's edge. Chicago pairs it with Boats on the Beach at Étretat, painted from the same viewpoint. The fleet at rest, then the fleet going out.
“then I attempted to do, always through the window, a picture of the boats departing.”
The vessels Fishing boats of Étretat setting out from the beach; retired boats covered with tarred planks served as storage huts called caloges.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boats drawn up on the beach at Étretat Unnamed
Étretat: The Beach and the Falaise d'Amont, 1885
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1964.204)
Medium Oil on canvas
Monet chose to go to Étretat with his family out of season, in the autumn and winter of 1885, when the summer visitors had gone. In this sun-soaked view of the Amont cliff, in saturated blues, oranges and pinks, the beach is empty except for a small group of local fishing boats gathered on the shore. They are the only sign of life, and they tell us whose beach it really was out of season. Painted in the same months as his pictures of the boats seen from his hotel window, it shows the fleet in full sun.
“the beach appears desolate aside from a small grouping of local fishing boats gathered at the shore”
The vessels Local fishing boats drawn up on the beach at Étretat on the Normandy coast, as the Art Institute describes; the vessels are not named.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Painting
Covered river boat at the harbour of Les Andelys Unnamed
Les Andelys, Côte d'Aval, 1886
Artist Paul Signac (1863 to 1935)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1993.208)
Medium Oil on canvas
This view of the little river harbour of Les Andelys, on the Seine near Giverny, belongs to Signac's first series painted in dots and dashes of contrasting colour, the technique his friend Seurat had originated. Signac would become its most ardent champion, and here he is already making it his own through geometry: a triangle of blue bends the river, trapezoids build the cultivated hill. The covered boat moored at the bank in the foreground gives the design its human scale, a solid shape in a landscape turning into light.
The vessels A covered river boat moored at the harbour of Les Andelys on the Seine; not a named vessel.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Drawing
Rowing boat approaching the jetty at Dalarö Unnamed
Sommarnöje (Summer Fun), 1886
Artist Anders Zorn (1860 to 1920)
Source Sold at Stockholms Auktionsverk, Stockholm, 2010
Medium Watercolour
Zorn's wife Emma, in a white dress and hat, stands at the edge of a wooden pier at Dalarö near Stockholm, waiting for their friend Carl Gustav Dahlström, who is rowing towards her across rippling water under a grey sky. The boat is the whole event of the picture: someone arriving, a moment about to happen. Painted in the early summer of 1886, soon after their honeymoon, the watercolour catches that fleeting moment with the lessons of the French Impressionists Zorn had seen in Paris, in an austere Scandinavian palette. In 2010 it set a record for a Swedish painting.
The vessels A small wooden rowing boat rowed by the Zorns' friend Carl Gustav Dahlström at Dalarö; not a named vessel.
Sources Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boats on the beach at Saintes-Maries Unnamed
Fishing Boats on the Beach at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (Vissersboten op het strand van Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer), 1888
Artist Vincent van Gogh (1853 to 1890)
Where to see it Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (s0028V1962)
Medium Oil on canvas
In June 1888 Van Gogh went to Saintes-Maries on the Mediterranean and wrote to Émile Bernard of little green, red and blue boats on the flat sand, so pretty that one thought of flowers. The fishermen put out to sea too early for him to paint on the beach, so he drew the boats there and made the painting at home. The Van Gogh Museum points to their flat areas of colour, strong outlines and the absence of shadows on the sand, lessons from his Japanese prints. The boats are the whole song of the picture, beached flowers of colour under a southern sky.
“little green, red, blue boats, so pretty in shape and colour that one thought of flowers”
The vessels Van Gogh described them as one-man boats that hardly went onto the high sea, dashing out when there was no wind and coming back to land if there was a bit too much.
Sources Van Gogh Museum · Van Gogh Letters
Image: Vincent van Gogh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Pleasure yachts moored at Argenteuil Unnamed
Sailing Boats at Argenteuil (Voiliers à Argenteuil), c. 1888
Artist Gustave Caillebotte (1848 to 1894)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 1954 31)
Medium Oil on canvas
Caillebotte was a sailor who designed his own yachts and won races. In 1881 he bought a house at Petit Gennevilliers, across the river from Argenteuil where the Cercle de la Voile de Paris had its base. Here he paints what the Musée d'Orsay calls the flotilla of pleasure boats moored downstream from the old wooden bridge. The masts and the bridge make a firm structure of verticals and horizontals, loosened by the diagonals of the sails and the landing stage. Broad, closely laid strokes catch the shimmer of the river. These are boats painted by a man who loved to sail them.
“the flotilla of pleasure boats moored downstream from the old wooden bridge at Argenteuil”
The vessels Pleasure sailing boats on the Seine at Argenteuil, the stretch of river used by the Cercle de la Voile de Paris; not individual named vessels.
Sources Musée d’Orsay · Wikipedia
Image: Gustave Caillebotte, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boats at sea off Saintes-Maries Unnamed
Seascape near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (Zeegezicht bij Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer), 1888
Artist Vincent van Gogh (1853 to 1890)
Where to see it Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (s0117V1962)
Medium Oil on canvas
Van Gogh took three canvases to Saintes-Maries in June 1888 and covered them all: two seascapes and a view of the village. The Van Gogh Museum says he painted this one looking at the Mediterranean from the beach, and grains of sand are still in the paint. He told Theo the sea had a colour like mackerel, changing, so that you could not always tell whether it was green or purple. The waves are laid on with brush and palette knife, and his signature sits in bright red, a red note in the green. Out on that shifting sea a small fishing boat leans under its sails, the one-man craft he described to Bernard.
“has a colour like mackerel, in other words, changing”
The vessels The small fishing boats of Saintes-Maries, which Van Gogh described as one-man boats that hardly went onto the high sea and came back to land when the wind rose.
Sources Van Gogh Museum · Van Gogh Letters
Image: Vincent van Gogh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing boat off the jetty at Cassis Unnamed
The Jetty at Cassis, Opus 198 (La Jetée de Cassis), 1889
Artist Paul Signac (1863 to 1935)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1976.201.19)
Medium Oil on canvas
Between 1887 and 1891 Signac spent the warm months pursuing his two passions, marine painting and boating. This is one of five views he made at the Mediterranean port of Cassis between April and June 1889, singled out for praise when the series appeared at the Salon des Indépendants later that year. He found there white, blue and orange spread over the rise and fall of the land. The sea by the long jetty gives the picture its calm, and the opus number, which he inscribed on every picture until 1894, asks us to hear it like music.
“White, blue and orange, harmoniously spread over the beautiful rise and fall of the land.”
The vessels Small sailing boats off the port of Cassis on the Mediterranean; the vessels are not named.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing ships in the dock at Deauville Unnamed
The Dock of Deauville, 1891
Artist Eugène Boudin (1824 to 1898)
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1939.165)
Medium Oil on wood panel
Ships at rest in harbour were a common theme of Boudin's mature art. Cleveland observes that he rarely painted the busy commercial life around them; he strove for calm, harmony and light. His brushwork by 1891 was very sketchy, yet he could still suggest the complex sails and structures of big vessels. He rubbed light tones around the masts and let white and grey drift over the dark lines of spars and rigging, as if the wind were passing through. The ships are portraits of stillness, breathing gently at their moorings.
“as if to evoke the passing wind and shifting positions common to nautical life”
The vessels Square-rigged sailing ships and a small steamer in the dock at Deauville on the Normandy coast; not individual named vessels.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art
Harbours and light · Painting
Small sailing boat, with a three-master on the horizon Unnamed
The Man at the Helm (L'Homme à la barre), 1892
Artist Théo van Rysselberghe (1862 to 1926)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 1976 79)
Medium Oil on canvas
Van Rysselberghe pushes a man in oilskins at the tiller of a small sailing boat into the lower right corner and gives almost the whole canvas to the ocean's waves, stippled in pointillist colour. A three-masted ship stands on the horizon. We are aboard, sharing the helmsman's view and his concentration. The picture belonged to Paul Signac and came to the French national collections through the gift of Signac's daughter Ginette in 1976.
The vessels An unnamed small open sailing boat, steered by a single helmsman in oilskins; a three-masted ship stands on the horizon.
Sources Musée d’Orsay · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Théo van Rysselberghe, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Small sailing boat off Antibes Unnamed
The Boating Party (La partie en bateau), 1893 to 1894
Artist Mary Cassatt (1844 to 1926)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale Collection (1963.10.94)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in the winter of 1893 to 1894 at Antibes, this is one of Cassatt's largest and most ambitious pictures. A boatman in a refined version of local fisherman's dress, sash and floppy beret, seen from behind, rows a woman and child, while the bright yellow boat cuts across the sea. The cropped, asymmetrical view shows her interest in Japanese prints. The oar, the sail and the man's arm converge on mother and child, placing them at the heart of the boat. In 1914 Cassatt still refused to sell it, having promised it to her family.
“About the painting, La Barque, I do not want to sell it; I have already promised it to my family.”
The vessels A small open sailboat with a canoe stern, no boom and three thwarts, rowed by a boatman; not an identified vessel.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Valencian fishing boat hauled ashore by oxen Unnamed
The Return from Fishing: Hauling the Boat (Le Retour de la pêche : halage de la barque), 1894
Artist Joaquín Sorolla (1863 to 1923)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Medium Oil on canvas
A fishing boat comes home to the beach of El Cabañal at Valencia, and two oxen haul it in while its great lateen sail, swollen by the wind, seems to help them. A fisherman rides on the neck of one ox to guide it, another waits with a plank for the hull, and a last man in the boat trims a sheet. The sail fills half the canvas along a diagonal, and Sorolla draws flashes of light out of its shadow. Parisians loved its Mediterranean air and working vitality; the French state bought it in 1895 for the Musée du Luxembourg.
The vessels A lateen-rigged fishing boat, a barque catalane, hauled up the beach of El Cabañal at Valencia by oxen on its return; not a named vessel.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia (ES)
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, where the original is kept. Photo: Gonzalezpascalphotos, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Small sailing boat in a cove Unnamed
The Little Boat (La Petite Barque), 1895
Artist Émile Friant (1863 to 1932)
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy
Medium Oil on panel
Friant, working with the help of photographs, sets a young couple afloat in a small sailing boat in a cove beneath a cliff. She sits at the stern in a white dress with the tiller in her hand, seen in profile; he lies stretched in the boat, his arm resting on her. The lugsail behind their heads holds the centre of the composition, and the water they have just left lies in shadow. Shown at the Paris Salon of 1896, it is a picture of quiet intimacy, and the boat is its private world.
The vessels An unnamed small sailing boat with a lugsail (voile au tiers) and rudder.
Sources Wikipedia (FR)
Harbours and light · Painting
Boats at the Boieldieu Bridge, Rouen Unnamed
Morning, An Overcast Day, Rouen (Matin, temps gris, Rouen), 1896
Artist Camille Pissarro (1830 to 1903)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1980.21.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Pissarro wanted the iron bridge on a rainy day, with traffic, carriages, pedestrians, workers on the quays, boats, smoke and mist, the whole scene full of animation and life. He painted the Boieldieu Bridge again and again from a room in the Hôtel d'Angleterre. The boats moored below the bridge supply the smoke and much of the animation he describes, the working river under a grey sky. It is a painting of a modern port as weather, where hulls, funnels and steam dissolve into the same wet morning light.
“iron bridge on a rainy day, with much traffic, carriages, pedestrians, workers on the quays, boats, smoke, mist in the distance”
The vessels A small steamer and barges at the quay below the Boieldieu Bridge; none is identified.
Sources The Met
Image: Camille Pissarro, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Steamboats at the quays of Rouen Unnamed
Steamboats in the Port of Rouen (Bateaux à vapeur dans le port de Rouen), 1896
Artist Camille Pissarro (1830 to 1903)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (58.133)
Medium Oil on canvas
Pissarro arrived in Rouen in January 1896 for his second long stay already sure that the quays would make famous paintings, and he painted them from his window at the Hôtel de Paris. Here the steamboats are the life of the scene: funnels, smoke and hulls on the river, with the wharves and warehouses of working-class Saint-Sever across the water. The steamer in the foreground breathes a great plume of smoke across the quay, and with it the whole port seems to move, trade and weather mixed in one grey morning.
“the beautiful motifs of the quays, which will make famous paintings.”
The vessels Steamers at the quays of Rouen, with the wharves and warehouses of the Saint-Sever district across the Seine; none is identified.
Sources The Met
Image: Camille Pissarro, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing boats of Nyländska Jaktklubben Unnamed
The Nyländska Jaktklubben Boat Harbour in Helsinki (Nyländska Jaktklubbens båthamn i Helsingfors), 1899
Artist Albert Edelfelt (1854 to 1905)
Where to see it Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki (Antell Collection)
Medium Oil on canvas
Edelfelt paints the sailing boats of Nyländska Jaktklubben, Helsinki's Swedish speaking yacht club, lying in their club harbour in the South Harbour, with the Cathedral and the Uspenski Cathedral standing out on the skyline. It was shown in the Finnish pavilion at the Paris World's Fair of 1900 and acquired in 1902 for the Antell Collection of the Finnish National Gallery. In 2000 it was hung behind the desk in the President's study at the Presidential Palace, so that for years Finns saw these little boats behind the President's televised New Year speech.
The vessels Sailing boats of Nyländska Jaktklubben, a Helsinki yacht club, in the club harbour in the South Harbour; none is identified.
Sources Wikipedia (DE)
Image: Albert Edelfelt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Venetian sailing boat with a yellow sail Unnamed
Venice, the Yellow Sail (Venise, la voile jaune), 1904
Artist Paul Signac (1863 to 1935)
Where to see it Musée national d'Art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, on deposit at the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie, Besançon (Da.970.1.100)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in Venice in 1904, this divisionist seascape sets a single sailing boat on the lagoon before the campanile of Saint Mark's, with the palaces, domes and towers of the city behind. The yellow sail of the title is the note that holds the picture together, a point of warm colour on which the whole view turns. One sail is enough to organise Venice around it. The collectors Adèle and George Besson gave the picture to the State in 1963, and since 1972 it has been on deposit at Besançon.
The vessels An unnamed sailing boat on the Venetian lagoon, carrying the yellow sail of the title.
Sources memoirevive.besancon.fr · Wikipedia (FR)
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie, Besançon, where the original is kept. Photo: Wikipedro, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing boats in the Old Port of Marseille Unnamed
Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde (La Bonne Mère), Marseille, 1905 to 1906
Artist Paul Signac (1863 to 1935)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (55.220.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
After visiting Marseille late in 1905, Signac painted two canvases in his studio: the entrance to the port, and this view towards the hill crowned by Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, the church seamen called the Good Mother. The harbour below lies under her gaze, built from rectangular strokes of unmixed colour set like the tesserae of a mosaic. The Met links the bold palette to Signac's contact with Cross and Matisse at Saint-Tropez in the summer of 1904. It is a harbour painted as a devotion, the sailors' church watching over the sailors' boats.
“the church nicknamed the ‘Good Mother’ by seamen”
The vessels Boats of the harbour of Marseille beneath Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, the church the Met says seamen nicknamed the Good Mother; the vessels are not named.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Two sailing boats at a Normandy harbour mouth Unnamed
Little Harbor in Normandy (Petit Port en Normandie), 1909
Artist Georges Braque (1882 to 1963)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1970.98)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Art Institute calls this the first fully realised example of Braque's early Cubism, painted in spring 1909 as he and Picasso worked in close dialogue. The Channel coast is described in severe geometry and a sober, pale palette, and the space is compressed so that the two sailing boats seem pushed forward to the front edge of the picture. Braque added a fringe of whitecaps and dashes of cloud to keep it moving. The boats are the living subject in a world turned to geometry. Shown at the Salon des Indépendants in March 1909, it was the first major Cubist work seen in so prominent a venue.
“a fringe of whitecaps to the sea and dashes of clouds across the sky”
The vessels Two small sailing boats at a harbour on the English Channel coast of Normandy, as the Art Institute describes; the vessels are not named.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Art Institute of Chicago, where the original is kept. Photo: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Harbours and light · Painting
Large sailing vessels at the entrance to the port of Marseille Unnamed
The Entrance to the Port of Marseille (L'Entrée du port de Marseille), 1911
Artist Paul Signac (1863 to 1935)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 1977 324), on deposit at the Musée Cantini, Marseille
Medium Oil on canvas
Signac painted sailing ships at the entrance to the port of Marseille in a palette dominated by pink and blue, with the city's fortifications framing the harbour mouth. The canvas is large, more than a metre and a half wide, and the big sailing vessels give it its scale and its calm. The French State bought the picture in 1920 for the Musée du Luxembourg, and since 1983 it has hung on deposit in Marseille itself, at the Musée Cantini, a stone's throw from the harbour it shows.
The vessels Large sailing vessels at the harbour entrance of Marseille; none is individually identified.
Sources Musée d’Orsay · Wikipedia (FR)
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