Washerwomen on the Banks of the River Touques

Washerwomen on the Banks of the River Touques (1885) by Eugène Louis Boudin depicts a scene of outdoor laundry work along the Touques river in Normandy — the river that flows through Lisieux and enters the sea at Deauville-Trouville, the coastal town most associated with Boudin's work. Boudin returned repeatedly to the Norman countryside and its rivers as well as the coastal beaches and harbors that made his name. The washerwomen subject had a long tradition in French painting, and Boudin's treatment combines sympathy for the laboring figures with his characteristic attention to the sky and light. The work is now in the Burrell Collection, Glasgow.

Boudin organizes the scene along the riverbank, with the working women in the middle ground and the characteristic expansive Norman sky occupying the upper portion of the composition. His handling is light and fresh, using a cool palette dominated by blues, greens, and grays. The figures are loosely but characteristically handled — present but not dominant.