Gezicht op Honfleur vanaf het water 1872

Carel Nicolaas Storm van 's-Gravesande made this pencil drawing of Honfleur, a port city in Normandy, France, in 1872. Van 's-Gravesande was Dutch, but he belonged to a generation of artists who travelled widely in search of inspiration. In the 19th century, Honfleur became a popular destination for artists, drawn by its picturesque harbor and the quality of light. It was a place where artists could escape the increasingly industrialized cities and connect with a more authentic, rural way of life. This drawing, with its emphasis on the working boats and the historic architecture of the port, reflects that sensibility. The Rijksmuseum's records tell us something about the provenance of this work and therefore about the market for drawings at this time. These are the kinds of resources that art historians use to understand the social life of art. For ultimately, artworks are meaningful to the degree that they are embedded in a social and institutional context.