Laundresses on the Banks of the Touques 

Eugène Boudin painted Laundresses on the Banks of the Touques with oil on canvas, in 1895. The texture of the paint mimics that of the muddy ground and turbulent water. Boudin’s loose brushstrokes and muted color palette emphasize the labor and toil of women washing clothes by hand. The women, bent over the riverbank, form a unified row, their white linens reflecting the overcast sky, mirroring the hard, repetitive nature of their work. There’s a stark contrast here; in the late 19th century, clean linens symbolized bourgeois comfort, yet the labor required to achieve this was often invisible. Boudin brings that labor into view. By depicting this scene, he acknowledges the social and economic forces that shaped everyday life, a direct recognition of labor's place in art. This challenges conventional distinctions between the high art of landscape painting and the more humble realities of working-class existence.