Figures on a Beach, Northern France

Thomas Shotter Boys

1830 · Watercolor and gouache (bodycolor) over graphite with stopping out · Drawings and Prints

Boys’s artistic vision was shaped by Richard Parkes Bonington, whom he met in Paris in 1823. Their friendship encouraged Boys to shift his attention from engraving to watercolor. After Bonington’s tragic early death in 1828, Boys moved back to England and made this watercolor around the time he returned to France two years later. He found the subject on the northern coast, perhaps in Normandy, and made changeable weather a focus. Dark swift rain clouds threaten to drench figures dressed in local costume who stand near a beached sailing vessel. While the handling and approach to form display a distinct individuality, the basic conception continues to pay tribute to Bonington.

Artist

Thomas Shotter Boys

Date

1830

Medium

Watercolor and gouache (bodycolor) over graphite with stopping out

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Purchase, Malcolm Hewitt Weiner Foundation Gift and Mr. and Mrs. Frank E. Richardson Gift, 2004