Catalogue Entry
This painting corresponds to the etching, Mouth of the Seine (E.701), a title referring to the source of the Seine River, which issues into the English Channel in Normandy, between Honfleur to the south and Le Havre to the north. It has thus been presumed that Twachtman created this scene during the visit he paid to Honfleur in the summer of 1885. The etching (not in reverse) was meant to illustrate the painting, but the painting's composition is tighter. The two freight boats in the foreground are larger in relation to the land rise on the horizon line. The smoke from a tugboat in the left middle distance is apparent, whereas the boat is indicated only by a small shape in the etching. More than in the etching, the painting reveals that the water curves between land masses as it issues into the sea.
Where Twachtman would have rendered this scene in Honfleur is unclear. It is possible that the work depicts a view of Honfleur's Vieux Bassin: a photograph, if reversed, presents a similar configuration of land and water (fig. 1). However, the painting's title does not date from the artist's lifetime, and it has had several titles over the years. Its dimensions suggest that it was shown as On the Seine, Near Paris (no. 38, 14 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches) in the February 1889 Twachtman–Weir sale, held at the Fifth Avenue Art Galleries. (If so, it could have been one of three views of the Seine in Twachtman's 1885 show at Chase's Gallery, Boston.) In 1909, the painting was titled Freight Boats on the Seine in the catalogue for the sale of the collection of James S. Inglis of Cottier & Company. From the sale, the painting was purchased by William T. Evans, and the same title was used when the work was included in the sale of Evans's collection in 1913.
In an article by Eliot Clark, published in International Studio in 1921, the painting was reproduced as Canal Boats, implying that its subject was not the Seine. In the same year, the corresponding etching was listed as The Mouth of the Seine in the catalogue, published for Twachtman's heirs, by Frederick Keppel and Company that featured twenty of the artist's etching impressions (see Wickenden 1921). In the Keppel catalogue's essay, Twachtman's friend, Robert J. Wickenden, who spent time with him in Paris, described the etching as a view in which “a group of canal boats with bare vertical masts are attached to the shore to the left and long level shore lines extend across the distance.”[1]
In his 1924 monograph, Clark referred to the painting, probably for the first time, as The Mouth of the Seine. Two other paintings relate to it that, nonetheless, do not help in confirming its site: Canal Scene (OP.706) and View of the Seine, near Neuilly (OP.707).
[1] Wickenden 1921, p. 29.
From American Art Association 1909
At a point where the river widens out, forming a small bay, two freight barges are moored, taking on their loads to be transported down the river. Beyond the bay a point of land covered with trees reaches out into the water, against which rises the steam from a small tug near the shore, also three tall poplars. The river reflects the gray sky, making altogether one of this artist's most pleasing pictures.
From American Art Association 1913
The river, which fills the right of the picture, is here passing through an open country, the irregular bank at the left starting midway of the foreground and extending first back toward the left and then out toward the right again in a wooded point projecting into the river. The stream is gray, tinged with blue, under a gray sky. Freight boats of the type which ply the Seine are moored near the bank in the foreground, the dull brown hulls seen against the light, which casts wobbly reflections astern, toward the spectator. A figure appears on one of the boats. The atmosphere is clear though the sky is gray, and there are suggestions of distant smoke. The bank and a road traversing it are a sandy-brown, with green patches, and the fields before the dark woods are a moist green, while here and there are suggestions of sundry buildings.
From Clark 1921
Many of the motives [in the French period works] introduce water, showing scenes along the Seine, or the waterways of Holland. There is seldom an attempt at sunlight, so that the gray hues of the clouded sky and its reflections dominate the colour scheme. The effect therefore depends upon carefully considered value relations, in variations of neutral greens and browns.
From Clark 1924
Thus we see in the small canvas, “Canal Boats,” from which the etching, “Mouth of the Seine,” was drawn, a more satisfactory filling of space [than in Windmills, OP.749] relative to the dimensions of the canvas, and a corresponding concentration of effect. The incisive use of the brush, the effective disposition of the darks, the simple but descriptive outline of the distant woods, make this picture one of the most striking products of the period.
From Boyle 1979
Although this painting is executed with a certain amount of vigor, it is a vigor that seems to hark back to Munich. There is a general air of awkwardness about it. Its composition is reminiscent of New York Harbor, and despite the assured manner of applying paint to the canvas, there is something awkward in the placement of forms. There is a leaden, heavy atmosphere, reflecting an artist striving to change his style—also, perhaps an indication of his state of mind at the time.
- Museum website (collections.telfair.org)