(1824-1898) French marine and landscape painter. The mentor of Claude Monet, he was one of the first to embrace the ‘plein air’ style of painting outdoors which would become the hallmark of the Impressionists. Rare, fine content A.L.S. ‘E. Boudin’ 4pp. 8vo., Venice, June 20, 1895, to his gallerist Paul Detrimont, the influential art dealer who, with Durand-Ruel, established the market for modernism. In part: ‘…I had promised myself I would send you a few lines from Venice, and you see, I took a long time to realize my desire, but I must tell you that the days are short when you want to use them well! Besides, one comes home tired, most often irritated by the heat, and we laze around instead of writing. I would like to send you words about this city…It would seem strange to you if you were, all of a sudden, transported to the dock…I write you from the Grand Canal in sight…which fades…into night. The greenish sea, the sky full of light-colored clouds, but…like our north in some moments...’. Boudin continues with this finely detailed narrative for three more pages, penned in his very difficult-to-read hand, but most definitely worthy of finding a suitable translator! The content is social but also discusses much of Venice’s unique color palette and its atmosphere: a trope which Boudin attempted to capture in all his works. It also appears that he makes mention of English watercolorist Walter Tyndale, but research does not indicate that the two painters were intimately connected. Boudin’s visits to Venice in the 1890s marked a pivotal moment in his career. He made a short trip in 1892 and again in 1894, but it was in 1895 that he spent two months there and created an incredible total of 75 paintings and sketches. Three of his best-known works were executed during this trip: ‘Venice – Seascape at the Guidecca’, ‘Venice’ and ‘Venice: View from the Grand Canal’. Boudin continued to work on these paintings when he returned to Paris, exhibiting them in 1897. They were enthusiastically received by collectors and in fact fetched record prices in the studio sale after the artist’s death just one year later. Boudin once said to his art dealer that Venice is ‘somewhat disguised by the artists who usually paint Venice, who have disfigured it by turning it into a city heated by the brightest and hottest sun. On the contrary, Venice, like all luminous cities, has a grey hue, the atmosphere is mild and misty and the sky arrays itself with clouds, just like the sky of our Norman and Dutch regions’. This sentiment is indeed well-expressed in our fine letter! With original holograph envelope.