Lady in Boat

Henry Bacon’s Lady in Boat shows a young peasant woman aboard one of the many barges that still ply the waters of the Seine River in Paris. Barefoot, plainly dressed, and wearing a traditional white cap, the strings of which fall carelessly to her shoulders, the figure leans idly against the boat’s tiller and gazes dreamily off to the left. In the distance, the Pont des Arts and the Palais du Louvre give the image a firm geographical identity reiterated in the furled tricoleur, the French blue, white, and red flag, posted on the roof of another barge in the right background. The bridge in the distance, the tiller, and the barge’s ribbed “bridge” on which the woman stands create a strong horizontal emphasis balanced by the distant building and the dark, upright figure, whose right arm forms a sweeping curve continued in the rope hanging from the tiller’s end. That motion, along with the woman’s wistful gaze to the left, seem designed to highlight the presence of the Louvre, the famed museum that drew numerous American artists like Bacon to Paris.

Pensive, even melancholic, but undeniably pretty, the woman is portrayed with a combination of exacting realism in material details and romantic idealization. She is typical of the French peasant subjects that dominated Bacon’s work in France in the late 1860s and 1870s, when academic paintings of European peasantry were popular on both sides of the Atlantic. Bacon no doubt intended Lady in Boat, with its appealing female figure and recognizable Parisian setting, for the burgeoning American tourist trade. The artist soon discovered an equally compelling but as yet untapped contemporary subject: life aboard the steamships then regularly crossing the Atlantic to serve the booming American trade in European tourism. Lady in Boat echoes both themes, while paying homage to Paris as the new world capital of art.

Rivières et rivages: les artistes américains, 1850–1900 (Waves and Waterways: American Perspectives, 1850–1900), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2000. [exh. cat.]

The People Work: American Perspectives, 1840–1940 (Le Travail à l'oeuvre: les artistes américains 1840–1940), Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 15–May 25, 2003; Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, June 8–August 17, 2003. [exh. cat.]

Le Temps des loisirs : peintures américaines (At Leisure: American Paintings), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, July 15–October 31, 2007.

Le Temps des loisirs : peintures américaines (At Leisure: American Paintings), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2008.

Cartwright, Derrick R. Waves and Waterways: American Perspectives, 1850–1900. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text pp. 11, 26 (checklist); ill. p. 38 (color).

Cartwright, Derrick R. Rivières et rivages: les artistes américains, 1850–1900. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Text pp. 11, 26 (checklist); ill. p. 38 (color).