The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 14, 2025

Pastel drawing of a seascape, the water taking up the lower sixth, with the remainder of the drawing depicting a sky crowded with fluffy white clouds. The sea is created with streaks of grey, blue, and cream with a sailboat in the lower right corner. The clouds, detailed with grey and beige, cluster in streaks towards the center, before becoming more sparse and fluffy near the top.

Seascape with Open Sky

1860

Eugène Boudin

(French, 1824–1898)
France, 19th century
pastel on gray wove paper mounted on thin paperboard
Sheet: 21.5 x 28.7 cm (8 7/16 x 11 5/16 in.)
Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift 2020.116
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

The well-known Parisian critic and writer Charles Baudelaire singled out Eugène Boudin's seascape pastels in a review published around the time this work was made, describing them as characterized by "meteorological beauty."

Description

Eugène Boudin is best known for inspiring Impressionist artists, especially a young Claude Monet, to paint outdoors. This drawing belongs to a series that Boudin made throughout much of his career depicting seascapes with dramatic skylines onsite. He favored pastel, the powdery medium used here, for its portability and directness, allowing him to capture the dramatic effects of nature as they shifted.
  • 1860-1898
    Studio of the artist [1824-1898; Lugt 828]
    1899
    (his posthumous studio sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, March 20-21, 1899, probably one of nos. 243–54)
    ?-2002
    Dr. Gustav Rau [1922-2002], Stuttgart
    2013
    (his sale, Kunsthaus Lempertz, Cologne, May 25, 2013, no. 650, for the UNICEF Germany Foundation, sold to Le Claire Kunst, Hamburg)
    2013-2014
    (Le Claire Kunst, Hamburg, sold to Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley, Shaker Heights, OH)
    2014-2020
    Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley, Shaker Heights, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    2020-
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    Provenance Footnotes
    1 Given the presence of Boudin's studio stamp (Lugt 828), presumably one of numerous lots sold as "Étude de ciel (pastel)."
  • Atelier Eugène Boudin: Catalogue des Tableaux, Pastels, Aquarelles et Dessins (Paris: Hôtel Drouot, 1899). Mentioned: 62–63, nos. 243–54 (presumably one of numerous pastels sold as Étude de ciel).
    Rétrospective Eugène Boudin. Exh. Cat. Osaka: Musée d'Art de Kintsu, 1996. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 114, no. 3
    Eugène Boudin, 1824-1898: Antesala del impresionismo. Exh. Cat. Bogotá: Museo Nacional de Colombia, 1998. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 20, no. 9
    Koella, Rudolf. Eugène Boudin (1824-1898): Impressionist der ersten Stunde. Exh. Cat. Baden: Stiftung Langmatt Sidney und Jenny Brown, 2000. Mentioned: p. 172, no. 65; Reproduced: p. 105
    Brown, Heather Lemonedes. "Boudin and Matisse." In The Keithley Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Art, edited by Heather Lemonedes Brown, 58-59, 140-141. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2022. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 58-59; Mentioned: p. 257
    Salsbury, Britany. Nineteenth-Century French Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Lewes, UK, Cleveland, Ohio: GILES; Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 102-103, no. 12
    Spinazzè, Sabrina. "Internazionalita di Michetti. Contatti, Scambi, Influenze e Convergenze con John Singer Sargent, Wilhelm von Gloeden, James Abbott McNeil Whistler ed Edgar Degas." In Francesco Paolo Michetti: Catalogo Generale. Edited by Fabio Benzi, Gianluca Berardi, Teresa Sacchi Lodispoto, and Sabrina Spinazzè, 37-55. Cinisello Balsamo, Milano: Silvana Editoriale, 2024. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 52-53, fig. 40, Vol. 2
    Rehahn. Impressionism : From Photography to Painting. Đồng Nai, Vietnam: Nhà xuất bản Đồng Nai, 2024. Reproduced: p. 21, no.7
    Suivre Les Nuages Le Pinceau À La Main: Correspondances, 1861-1898 d’Eugène Boudin. Edited by Laurent Manoeuvre and Archives Durand-Ruel. [Strasbourg]: L’Atelier contemporain, François-Marie Deyrolle éditeur, 2025. Reproduced: p. 3 of color plate section
  • Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-June 11, 2023).
    Impressionism to Modernism: The Keithley Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 11, 2022-January 8, 2023).
    Eugène Boudin (1824–1898): Impressionist der ersten Stunde. Stiftung Langmatt Sidney und Jenny Brown, Baden (April 1–June 25, 2000); Fondation de l’Hermitage, Lausanne (July 7–October 15, 2000).
    Eugène Boudin: Antesala del impresionismo. Museo Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá (May 7–June 28, 1998); Suramericana de Seguros, Medellín, Colombia (July 5–August 30, 1998).
    Rétrospective Eugène Boudin. Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts (June 7–19, 1996); Hiroshima Museum of Art (June 29–August 11, 1996); Kagoshima City Art Museum (August 21–September 16, 1996); Chiba City Art Museum (October 2–27, 1996); Shizuoka City Art Museum (November 10–December 15, 1996).
  • {{cite web|title=Seascape with Open Sky|url=false|author=Eugène Boudin|year=1860|access-date=14 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2020.116