![Eugène Boudin - Princess Pauline Metternich on the Beach [c.1865-67] by Gandalf's Gallery](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vMIWwD-tdAvY0VRoC9Avday2cHYATjVM6C6NKBcFZV3tf3Q6o6TeBvEdhYGsYTJVnn-OCyRnXVoCdnABTTvdErwqA0J-fi5epi--GfTkq2glkBKgGQU1ARgdlUm7kd=s0-d)
Eugène Boudin - Princess Pauline Metternich on the Beach [c.1865-67], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.
The wife of the Austrian ambassador to France and one of the more noteworthy women at the court of Napoleon III, Princess Metternich, the famously homely yet chic style icon known for her sense of wit, referred to herself as "the fashionable monkey." Here, Boudin took her at her word, devoting a scrap of cardboard to capturing the effect of her voluminous skirts billowing in the wind at the Normandy shore.
Boudin achieved success with his scenes of fashionably dressed families taking the sea air at Trouville and other beach resorts, and apart from Empress Eugénie, no woman would have aroused more interest on the beach than Princess Metternich. A close friend of the empress, she became the face of fashion in Second Empire Paris.
[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on cardboard, laid down on wood, 29.5 x 23.5 cm]
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