The success of Claude Monet's paintings soon encouraged other artists to follow in his footsteps, so much so that their presence became inseparable from the village. ‘One of the most curious things about Étretat is certainly the number of painters who, during the morning on the beach, try out their brushes on the sea and the cliffs’, wrote a journalist in 1885. Among them, Eugène Boudin was one of the few from Normandy. In a way, he took over from Monet from 1887 onwards, concentrating more on scenes of everyday fishermen's life and avoiding the resort-related subjects that had made him such a success in Deauville and Trouville.
The final years of the century brought a wide variety of new approaches to the visual arts. Sophie Schaeppi is one of the few women artists whose work in Étretat remains known to us, in the wake of Post-Impressionism. Jean Francis Auburtin, influenced by his discovery of Japanese prints, produced a series of large-format watercolours and gouaches with graphic lines and original perspectives. Félix Vallotton, who stayed in the village for his honeymoon in 1899, focused his attention on the holidaymakers and bathers. His brightly coloured compositions, inspired by his impromptu photographs, reflect the society of his time with his own brand of humour.

Labels

Anonymous
Painter on the Beach at Étretat
Ca. 1900
Silver bromide gelatin print from a glass negative
Fécamp, Pascal Servain Collection

Gustave Caillebotte
Paris (France), 1848 – Gennevilliers, Hauts-de-Seine (France), 1894
Man in a Smock, known as Old Magloire on the Chemin de Saint-Clair at Étretat
1884
Oil on canvas
Private collection
Although Gustave Caillebotte's visits to the Normandy coast are well documented, the circumstances surrounding his visit to Étretat remain unclear. A researcher has suggested that the person depicted in the painting is Magloire Raulin, a gardener with a local reputation for the quality of the estate grounds he was responsible for maintaining. A keen horticulturist who himself gardened at his property in Petit-Gennevilliers, north-west of Paris, Caillebotte may have known him through this shared interest. However, no source confirms this and the location depicted does not correspond to the topography of the Chemin de Saint-Clair.

Eugène Boudin
Honfleur, Calvados (France), 1824 – Deauville, Calvados (France), 1898
Étretat, Boats on the Beach and the Amont Cliff
Ca. 1890-1891
Oil on panel
Le Havre, musée d’art moderne André Malraux
Gift of Louis Boudin, 1900

Eugène Boudin
Honfleur, Calvados (France), 1824 – Deauville, Calvados (France), 1898
Étretat, the Porte d’Aval
Ca. 1890-1891
Oil on panel
Le Havre, musée d’art moderne André Malraux
Gift of Louis Boudin, 1900

Eugène Boudin
Honfleur, Calvados (France), 1824 – Deauville, Calvados (France), 1898
Étretat, the Capstans and the Aval Cliff
1890
Oil on canvas
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Samuel S. White 3rd and Vera White Collection, 1967

Eugène Boudin
Honfleur, Calvados (France), 1824 – Deauville, Calvados (France), 1898
Étretat, the Laundresses on the Beach and the Aval Cliff
1894
Oil on panel
Washington, The National Gallery of Art
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection
Although Eugène Boudin visited Étretat as early as the 1850s, his first paintings of the town were not begun until the 1880s. In the intervening years, he built his reputation on beach scenes, in Deauville or Trouville, depicting stylish society. Here, on the other hand, he concentrated on landscape studies or scenes from the daily life of fishermen. In this painting, women from the village are busy washing clothes on the beach, in a stream exposed at low tide. Their presence here enlivens the landscape with touches of sparkling colour. This picturesque theme was particularly appreciated by Boudin, who was similarly interested in the women washing clothes on the banks of the Touques River in Normandy.

Paul Leroy
Paris (France), 1860 – 1942
Étretat, the Needle
1891
Oil on canvas
Paris, Musée d'Orsay, on long-term loan to Dijon, musée des Beaux-Arts
Bequest of the Michonis family, 1905

Sophie Schaeppi
Winterthur (Switzerland), 1852 - 1921
Étretat, the Porte d’Aval
1899
Oil on wood
Zurich, private collection
Sophie Schaeppi, from Winterthur, Switzerland, stayed in Étretat in late August and early September 1899. This was the third trip to Normandy for the artist, who had trained in Paris at the Académie Julian, regularly took part in the Salon de la Société des artistes français and also worked with the ceramist Théodore Deck. She produced a number of oil studies and drew the cliffs in her notebook with a sure hand. At the same time, she wrote the following comment in her diary: "I mainly do drawings, the cliffs are quite strange in outline, but the colour is hard and black, and a gaudy white in the sun." As far as we know, Sophie Schaeppi is one of the few women artists whose work in Étretat remains known today.

Sophie Schaeppi
Winterthur (Switzerland), 1852 - 1921
Sketchbook
1899
Pen and black ink on paper
Private collection

Émile Schuffenecker
Fresne-Saint-Mamès, Haute-Saône (France), 1851 – Paris (France), 1934
Rocks at Étretat
Ca. 1889–1892
Oil on canvas
Paris, Musée d'Orsay, on long-term loan to Tours, musée des Beaux-Arts

Jean Francis Auburtin
Paris (France), 1866 – Dieppe, Seine-Maritime (France), 1930
The Étretat Needle Viewed Through the Gap
Ca. 1898
Gouache on paper
Private collection

Jean Francis Auburtin
Paris (France), 1866 – Dieppe, Seine-Maritime (France), 1930
Étretat, Boats Returning
Ca. 1898
Gouache on paper
Private collection

Jean Francis Auburtin
Paris (France), 1866 – Dieppe, Seine-Maritime (France), 1930
Étretat, the Manneporte
1898
Graphite pencil, Indian ink, and watercolour on paper
Private collection
Jean Francis Auburtin discovered Étretat in 1898, before returning on several occasions. He produced large-format views of the cliffs, mainly in watercolour or gouache, sometimes enhanced with ink. Some of these were exhibited at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris. This decor specialist, an admirer of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, drew inspiration from his discovery of Symbolism and Japanese prints, whose bold framing and graphic style he adopted. Here, he positions his viewpoint at the level of the rocky ground cleared by the sea at low tide, in order to capture the silhouette of the Porte d'Aval and the Needle through the Manneporte Arch.

Jean Francis Auburtin
Paris (France), 1866 – Dieppe, Seine-Maritime (France), 1930
Étretat, the Porte d’Aval and the Needle
Ca. 1898-1899
Gouache on paper
Private collection

Eugène Grasset
Lausanne (Suisse), 1845 – Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine (France), 1917
The Cliffs of Étretat
Ca. 1890-1903
Graphite pencil on paper
Paris, musée d’Orsay
Purchased with the support of the Society of Friends of the Musée d'Orsay, 1993

Eugène Grasset
Lausanne (Suisse), 1845 – Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine (France), 1917
The Cliffs of Étretat
Ca. 1890-1903
Graphite pencil on paper
Paris, musée d’Orsay
Purchased with the support of the Society of Friends of the Musée d'Orsay, 1993

Eugène Grasset
Lausanne (Suisse), 1845 – Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine (France), 1917
The Cliffs of Étretat
Ca. 1890-1903
Graphite pencil on paper
Paris, musée d’Orsay
Purchased with the support of the Society of Friends of the Musée d'Orsay, 1993

Eugène Grasset
Lausanne (Suisse), 1845 – Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine (France), 1917
Cliffs, Ornamental Rendering
Ca. 1890-1903
Graphite pencil on paper
Paris, musée d’Orsay
Purchased with the support of the Society of Friends of the Musée d'Orsay, 1993

Eugène Grasset
Lausanne (Suisse), 1845 – Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine (France), 1917
Cliffs behind the High Tide, Ornamental Rendering
Ca. 1890-1903
Graphite pencil on paper
Paris, musée d’Orsay
Purchased with the support of the Society of Friends of the Musée d'Orsay, 1993
Eugène Grasset was one of the great decorators of the Art Nouveau movement. This jack-of-all-trades was a painter, illustrator, poster artist and engraver. He also provided designs for furniture, stained glass and jewellery, in the spirit of the fusion of the arts that marked the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The exact date and circumstances of his time in Étretat are not known. Only a series of drawings, preserved in his studio collection, bear witness to his stay. These works show his attention to the geology of the cliffs, which, under his gaze, were gradually transformed into ornamental and almost abstract motifs, later used as decoration in stained-glass windows or pieces of jewellery.

Maurice Denis
Granville, Manche (France), 1870 – Paris (France), 1943
Young Women Contemplating the Amont Cliff, Étretat
1904
Oil on cardboard
London, Emmanuel and Georgina Moatti Collection

Félix Vallotton
Lausanne (Switzerland), 1865 – Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine (France), 1925
14 July in Étretat
1899
Oil on cardboard
Private collection
Félix Vallotton stayed in Étretat from July to the end of September 1899, in the company of his wife Gabrielle, whom he had married a few weeks earlier. They rented the Château de Grandval for the summer and welcomed many visitors, including the painter Édouard Vuillard. While there, Vallotton produced small-format compositions in bright colours and synthetic shapes. Only the tricolour flag hoisted at the top of the boat's mast evokes the national holiday that gives the painting its title. The fishermen, who have not been out to sea, are chatting together with their backs to the viewer. The nets are laid out on the pebble beach, creating decorative shapes.

Félix Vallotton
Lausanne (Switzerland), 1865 – Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine (France), 1925
Four Bathers at Étretat
1899
Oil on cardboard mounted on wood
Geneva, Bailly Gallery
Among the works he produced during his stay in Étretat, Félix Vallotton chose to focus mainly on the summer visitors and bathers. He took snapshots on the fly with a Kodak camera he had recently acquired. He used these as a starting point for his compositions of daring tight framing, in which he employed a satirical approach. The humorous scenes he depicted were in the tradition of Honoré Daumier's caricatures, while at the same time taking a sympathetic look at the world of holidaymakers trying their hand at swimming in the sea.

Constant de Tours
Twenty Days from Étretat to Ostend, Upper Normandy, Northern Beaches
1891
Print
Private collection

Anonymous
Étretat, General View, Cliff and Porte d'Amont
Postcard
Private collection

E.F.
Étretat, Aval cliff, Snow Effect
Postcard
Frankfurt, Städel Museum

Neurdein Frères
Étretat, the Needle and the Porte d’Aval
Postcard
Frankfurt, Städel Museum

Anonymous
Étretat, the Manneporte
Ca. 1919
Postcard
Frankfurt, Städel Museum

Anonymous
Photographic album containing views of Étretat: Bathers on the Beach at Étretat; The Diving Board at Étretat
Ca. 1908-1909
Silver bromide gelatin prints from glass negatives
Fécamp, Pascal Servain Collection

E. Le Deley
The Bath
Stereoscopic views Julien Damoy (series no. 10), heliotype
Frankfurt, Städel Museum

Neurdein Frères
Étretat, Sea Bathing
Postcard
Frankfurt, Städel Museum

Léon & Lévy
Étretat, the Beach, Bathing Time
Postcard
Frankfurt, Städel Museum

Neurdein Frères
Étretat, the Casino Terrace
Ca. 1910
Postcard
Frankfurt, Städel Museum

Neurdein Frères
Étretat, the Blanquet Hotel
Postcard
Frankfurt, Städel Museum