Entretat
July, 1858
Medium
Pen and brown ink, with brush and brown wash and white gouache, over traces of graphite, on blue wove paper
Dimensions
17.2 × 25.1 cm (6 13/16 × 9 15/16 in.)
Classification
pen and ink drawings
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
83327
Rights
Public Domain
Art Historical Context
Clarkson Stanfield’s *Entretat* captures a fleeting moment along the dramatic Normandy coast in July 1858. A leading British marine painter of the Victorian era, Stanfield frequently traveled to France to study its rugged shorelines, and this intimate drawing records the celebrated cliffs and sea arches of Étretat. Though modest in scale, the work reveals his lifelong fascination with the shifting moods of water and rock. Executed in pen and brown ink with fluid washes and touches of white gouache on blue paper, the drawing demonstrates Stanfield’s mastery of light and atmosphere. The blue ground provides a cool mid-tone that allows the ink lines and opaque highlights to suggest both the bright sky and the glistening surf. Such on-the-spot studies were essential to his larger oil paintings, which brought the drama of the sea to Victorian audiences. Now in the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection of prints and drawings, *Entretat* offers a rare glimpse of an artist at work, translating the raw energy of the French coast into delicate lines and luminous washes.