Sea View, Calm Weather (Vue de mer, temps calme)

Although boldly brushed and almost calligraphic in form, the vessels in this composition remain identifiable as specific types. To the right of center, a side-wheel packet steamer heads up the English Channel, leaving slower sailing boats in its wake. This is one of Édouard Manet’s earliest paintings of the sea, a subject to which he returned repeatedly. He painted it in Paris along with two or three other works based on sketches he made on a vacation with his family in the northern French port of Boulogne-sur-Mer.