Beach at Trouville

Boudin was very important in the formation of Monet's style. It was he who introduced Monet to the then revolutionary doctrine that the effects of changing light and colour could best be achieved by painting a whole picture, rather than just the sketch, in the open air. Boudin taught Monet that 'everything that is painted directly on the spot always has a force, a power, a vivacity of touch that cannot be recreated in a studio'. Monet was later to pay glowing tribute to Boudin: If I have become a painter, it is entirely due to Eugene Boudin'. The donor T. W. Bacon was a collector for nearly 50 years, buying his first paintings in 1887. He was a close friend of Sir Charles Holmes, director of the National Gallery from 1916 to 1928, who with his wife was a frequent visitor to Bacon's Essex home, Ramsden Hall.