Scattered with canvases by masters such as Eugène Delacroix, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot and Pierre Bonnard, Robert and Nadine Schmit's collection, offered at Sotheby's Paris on 8 December, also included a set of six works by Eugène Boudin (1824-1898). Among these works were five beach scenes, the genre that made the artist famous, as well as Deauville. The Racetrack in 1866, a view of the horse-racing track visited by the Parisian aristocracy from the 1860s.
It is the latter that seems to have captured the hearts of collectors, achieving the highest price of the sale, as well as setting a new record for the artist. Offered with an estimate between €300,000 and €500,000, the canvas was bought for €2.37 million (including fees), far surpassing Scène de Plage, which had held Boudin's current record since 2013 of €1.44 million (or £1.3 mil).
The composition divided by a horizon line, somewhat like his well-known seascapes, emphasises the painter's two focal points: the sky and the crowd. Far more than the horse races, the artist seems captivated by the dense crowd of people, which sweeps across the canvas. This 'sea' of men and women contrasts superbly with the sky, which occupies most of the composition and to which the painter has taken the greatest care. His fascination with the sky earned him the nickname 'King of the Heavens' by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, as well as the admiration of Gustave Courbet and Claude Monet.
See also: The Art of Plein Air Painting
This painting highlights Boudin's supreme talent in capturing the effects of the sunlight on the crowd below, and the sensation of the wind billowing the fabrics. It is these qualities of naturalness and immediacy that are often found in Boudin's work that profoundly influenced the Impressionist artists.
Presented at the opening of the sale, the Deauville work was part of the Rothschild collections for a while, before joining that of Robert and Nadine Schmit. An eminent specialist in nineteenth- and twentieth-century painting, Robert Schmit founded his eponymous gallery in 1964 at 396 rue Saint Honoré in Paris, which quickly became one of the most important in the capital. The work had also been chosen to appear on the cover of the catalogue of a Eugène Boudin exhibition, organised in 1984 by the dealer.
The sale of the Schmit collection, which included works by Kees Van Dogen, Odile Redon, Courbet, Bonnard and Delacroix, totalled €13.2 million, including fees.
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