Boudin, who was from Normandy, specialized in seascapes. In many of his works, he sets the horizon quite low, as in this painting, in which sky occupies the upper half. Gathered by the shore are men and women of the Parisian upper class in fashionable clothing. The man standing in the center of the group on the left, wearing a bowler hat, is the Baron de Rothschild. The seated woman in white, with a parasol, is the Empress Eugénie. The setting, Trouville, was a small fishing village in Normandy that, from the 1820s, became a frequent subject in paintings and novels.