Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, 'Beach Scene', about 1869-70

Beach Scene

Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas

On loan: Long Loan to The Hugh Lane (2019 - 2026) (Group B), Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Dublin, Ireland

About the work

Overview

A maid combs the hair of a girl who has been swimming; her bathing suit is stretched out on the ground to dry. Other objects – two parasols, a basket and a summer bonnet – are scattered around. A family group (some members wrapped in towels) is leaving the shoreline, as other people stroll in the distance.

This is one of four beach scenes that Degas painted in around 1869, when he travelled to the coast of northern France, although he later stated that the picture had been completed in the studio. Small paintings of beach and seaside scenes in resorts such as Trouville were popular with several of Degas’s contemporaries, including Boudin, Monet and Manet.

Degas was a great admirer of Japanese prints, and adopted many aspects of their composition as well as their subject matter. The motif of a woman combing her hair or having it combed, which features in many Japanese prints, became part of his repertoire.

In-depth

A maid combs the hair of a girl who has been swimming; her bathing suit is stretched out on the ground to dry. Other objects – two parasols, a basket and a summer bonnet – are scattered around them. In the background, a family group – some members wrapped in towels – is leaving the shoreline, as other people stroll on the beach.

The picture was painted with essence – oil paint from which most of the oil has been removed with blotting paper, which is diluted with turpentine to give the effect of watercolour. It is one of four paintings of beach scenes that Degas completed in around 1869. That year he travelled to the northern French coast and made a series of landscapes in pastel. While some of the pastels may have been completed on site, Degas later stated that this picture had been finished in the studio, commenting, ‘the air you breathe in a picture is not necessarily the same as the air you breathe out of doors’. All four beach paintings include young women beside the sea, bathing, attending to their hair or resting.

Small paintings of beach and seaside scenes in resorts such as Trouville were popular with several of Degas’s contemporaries, including Whistler, Boudin and Monet. An immediate precedent was Manet’s Beach at Boulogne (Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond Virginia), from which Degas borrowed various elements. The two artists had a friendly but competitive relationship, and may well have travelled together to the channel coast in 1869. Both paintings have three horizontal bands for the sandy beach, turquoise-green sea and grey sky. Both also have sailboats in the distance – curiously, smoke from the two steamboats in Degas’s picture blows in opposite directions – and a scattering of bathers and walkers on the beach. Degas had originally planned to include a bathing machine, as Manet had, but he later removed it. Manet’s figures are of more or less of equal size, but Degas gives much greater emphasis to the girl and her maid.

Degas may have decided to paint beach scenes partly for commercial reasons, as marine subjects were popular with art buyers, particularly in England. He was familiar with British maritime pictures, but his painting is also profoundly influenced by Japanese woodblock prints. He especially admired the work of Ando Hiroshige (1797–1858), and owned over 40 of his landscapes. Hiroshige specialised in spacious panoramas which often contained little more than waves, rocks and sail boats in the distance to emphasise the contrast between the vast ocean and the deserted shore. Degas adopted the distinct spatial composition of Japanese prints, and several of their recurrent motifs, including a woman combing her hair or having it combed, also became part of his own repertoire.

Japanese prints were often made as triptychs, and the fact that this picture consists of three sheets of paper stuck together might seem to echo this construction. However, the addition of sheets either side of the central section containing the girl was most likely due to Degas’s decision to expand and modify the composition. The painting was owned by Henri Rouart, the father of Hélène Rouart, whose portrait was painted by Degas. The beach scene was exhibited at the Third Impressionist Exhibition in 1877.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Beach Scene
Artist: Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas
Artist dates: 1834 - 1917
Date made: about 1869-70
Medium and support: oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Dimensions: 47.5 × 82.9 cm
Inscription summary: Signed
Acquisition credit: Sir Hugh Lane Bequest, 1917, The National Gallery, London. In partnership with Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.
Inventory number: NG3247
Location: On loan: Long Loan to The Hugh Lane (2019 - 2026) (Group B), Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Dublin, Ireland
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 19th-century French Frame (original frame)

Provenance

3rd Impressionist Exhibition, Paris, April 1877 (No. 50), lent by M. H.R. Henri Rouart Sale, Paris, 9 December, 1912 (lot 178), bought by Sir Hugh Lane. Lane Bequest, 1917. At the Tate Gallery; transferred from the Tate Gallery, 1950.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Martin Davies, with additions and some revisions by Cecil Gould, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: French School: Early 19th Century, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, etc.’, London 1970; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2006

Long Loan to The Hugh Lane (2006 - 2013) (Group B)

Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane

31 December 2006 - 1 January 2013
2014

Loan to The Hugh Lane (2014 - 2015)

Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane

9 October 2014 - 13 September 2015
2016

Painters' Paintings: From Freud to Van Dyck

The National Gallery (London)

23 June 2016 - 4 September 2016
2019

Long Loan to The Hugh Lane (2019 - 2026) (Group B)

Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane

20 October 2019 - 23 February 2026
2023

Manet / Degas

Musée d'Orsay

27 March 2023 - 23 July 2023

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

18 September 2023 - 7 January 2024

Bibliography

1877

Catalogue de la 3e exposition de peinture, Paris 1877
1889

G.W. Thornley, Quinze lithographies d'apres Degas, Paris 1889
1912

Galerie Manzi-Joyart, Catalogue des tableaux anciens … tableaux modernes … composant la collection de feu M. Henri Rouart, Paris, 9 December 1912 - 11 December 1912
1917

C.J. Holmes, 'New Exhibits at the National Gallery', The Burlington Magazine, XXX/167, 1917, pp. 80-1
1918

P. Jamot, 'Degas', Gazette des beaux-arts, 1918, pp. 123-66
1926

National Gallery, National Gallery, Millbank: Catalogue: Modern Foreign School, London 1926
1927

C.J. Holmes, Notes on the Science of Picture Making, London 1927
1932

T. Bodkin, Hugh Lane and his Pictures, Dublin 1932
1937

A. Vollard, Degas: An Intimate Portrait, trans. R.T. Weaver, New York 1937
1938

A. Vollard, En écoutant Cézanne, Degas, Renoir, Paris 1938
1939

L. Venturi, Les archives de l'impressionnisme, Paris 1939
1946

P.-A. Lemoisne, Degas et son oeuvre, Paris 1946
1947

A. Tabarant, Manet et ses oeuvres, Paris 1947
1957

Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: French School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1957
1970

Davies, Martin, and Cecil Gould, National Gallery Catalogues: French School: Early 19th Century, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists etc., London 1970
1973

R. Schmit, Eugène Boudin 1824-1898, Paris 1973
1974

J. Lassaigne and F. Minervino, Tout l'oeuvre peint de Degas, Paris 1974
1981

E. de Keyser, Degas: Réalité et métaphore, Louvain 1981
1981

J. Mills and R. White, 'Analyses of Paint Media', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, V, 1981, pp. 66-7
1981

National Gallery, 'Pictures Cleaned and Restored in the Conservation Department of the National Gallery, January 1981 - December 1981', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, VI, 1982
1981

A. Smith, Mantegna: Samson and Delilah and Degas: Beach Scene (Bains de Mer. Petite Fille peignée par sa Bonne) (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 25 November 1981 - 10 January 1982), London 1981
1982

T. Reff, Manet and Modern Paris: One Hundred Paintings, Drawings, Prints and Photographs by Manet and His Contemporaries (exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 5 December 1982 - 6 March 1983), Washington 1982
1986

H. Langdon, Impressionist Seasons, Oxford 1986
1986

C.S. Moffett, The New Painting: Impressionism 1874-1886 (exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 17 January - 6 April 1986; The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, 19 April - 6 July 1986), Oxford 1986
1988

R.L. Herbert, Impressionism: Art, Leisure and Parisian Society, New Haven 1988
1990

F. Milner, Degas, London 1990
1993

R. Kendall, Degas: Landscapes (exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 21 January - 3 April 1994; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 24 April 1994 - 3 July 1994), New York 1993
1996

R. Berson, The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874-1886: Documentation, San Francisco 1996
1997

R. Kendall, 'Degas and Cezanne: Savagery and Refinement', in The Private Collection of Edgar Degas, New York 1997
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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