Blankenberge No.3 1875

William Stanley Haseltine made this watercolor, Blankenberge No. 3, on paper. The image depicts fishing boats pulled up on a beach in Blankenberge, a coastal town in Belgium. Haseltine was an American artist who traveled extensively in Europe. This work reflects the growing popularity of seaside tourism in the 19th century, as industrialization and urbanization led people to seek leisure and recreation in nature. The beach, once a workspace for fishermen, here becomes a site for middle-class leisure, with figures strolling and gathering near the boats. Watercolors like this one were often produced as souvenirs for tourists, reflecting a shift in the art market toward smaller, more portable, and affordable works. To fully understand this shift, we might research travel guides, advertisements, and other visual materials from the period. These sources can reveal the social and economic forces that shaped both the production and consumption of art in the 19th century.