Clair de lune sur le port de Boulogne
Moonlight over the fishing harbour of Boulogne-sur-Mer, women on the quay waiting for the boats to come in.
Boulogne-sur-Mer
The painting depicts a real landscape or cityscape. The precise viewpoint the artist used may be unknown, so the marker shows the general area.
Clair de lune sur le port de Boulogne — at a glance
- Artist
- Édouard Manet (1832–1883)
- Year
- 1868
- Movement
- Realism / Impressionism
- Place
- The fishing harbour of Boulogne-sur-Mer, France
- Viewpoint
- The night harbour and quay — the port remains but was war-damaged and rebuilt; a mood, not a fixed spot
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- c. 82 × 101 cm
- Now at
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Overview
Moonlight over Boulogne Harbour is an unusual night picture by Édouard Manet, painted in 1868 during one of his summers at the Channel port of Boulogne-sur-Mer. Under a broken, moonlit sky, a cluster of fishing boats with tall masts lies in the harbour; on the quay in the foreground, a group of women in white caps and dark shawls stands waiting; behind, the roofs and a church tower of the town. It is oil on canvas, about 82 by 101 cm, and it hangs in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Where was Clair de lune sur le port de Boulogne painted?
Scholarship Boulogne-sur-Mer, on the Côte d'Opale near Calais, was and is a major French fishing port. Manet stayed there several summers with his family and painted the harbour, the beach, the jetty and the packet boats to England. The old walled town on its hill and the harbour remain, though the port was heavily damaged in the Second World War and much rebuilt; the picture evokes the working night harbour rather than a fixed, marked viewpoint.
What is in the painting?
The masts and dark hulls of the fishing fleet fill the middle of the picture, silhouetted against a sky where the moon breaks through cloud and silvers the edges. The harbour water is dark, with pale reflections. On the lit quay in front, six or seven women stand close together, faces and caps catching the moonlight, waiting for the catch. The town is a low dark band behind.
Look closely
The waiting women
Six or seven women in white caps and dark shawls stand close together on the lit quay, watching for the catch.
The silhouetted fleet
Tall masts and dark hulls of the fishing boats stand black against the moonlit sky.
The breaking moon
The moon shows through torn cloud and silvers the cloud edges and the water.
Analysis
Composition and technique
A dark mass of masts and hulls against a silvered, cloud-broken moonlit sky, with the lit group of women in the foreground.
Scholarship Manet builds the picture from a few large tones — black boats, dark water, moon-pale sky and quay — and concentrates the light on the women's caps and the cloud edges. The debt to seventeenth-century Dutch moonlight harbours (Aert van der Neer) is often noted, but the handling is broad and modern.
History & provenance
The painting entered the French national collections and hangs in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
Sources
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris — collection entry for Édouard Manet, ‘Clair de lune sur le port de Boulogne’ (1868)
- Juliet Wilson-Bareau, ‘Manet and the Sea’ (2003)
Related paintings
The Russian Ship of the Line "Asow" and a Frigate at Anchor in the Roads of Elsinore
1828
Eckersberg's calm ship portrait — the Northern marine tradition Manet drew on.
Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge
1872
Whistler's moonlit Thames — a night harbour pared even further, a few years later.
Impression, Sunrise
1872
Monet's misty Le Havre harbour of 1872 — the port at another hour.
More by Édouard Manet
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
The Railway
Music in the Tuileries
