This is a view of the coast at Palavas-les-Flots, a fishing village south of Montpellier. The picture is similar to seascapes that Gustave Courbet painted there during his several visits to Montpellier in the 1850s. In particular, there are resemblances to his small painting The Seaside at Palavas (Musée Fabre, Montpellier). Painted in 1854, that work was commissioned by Alfred Bruyas during Courbet’s first visit. It shows Courbet, or perhaps Bruyas, standing on a deserted beach greeting the sea and may have been inspired in part by Caspar David Friedrich’s Monk by the Sea (Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin).
However, this slightly larger painting is not accepted as a work by Courbet despite the signature G. Courbet in the lower right corner. The composition, particularly the sky, is blander than his other seascapes and the smooth application of the thinned paint is unlike his more textured use of oil paint.
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Sarah Herring, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Nineteenth Century French Paintings’, vol. 1, ‘The Barbizon School’, London 2019; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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