Victor-Ferdinand Bourgeois, born in Amiens on 1 August 1870,1 studied at the École Régionale des Beaux-Arts de la Somme and at the Arts Décoratifs in Paris, where he won major prizes.
He continued in this vein with his Portrait du père de l’artiste en ouvrier, and his most ambitious realist work, the triptych Chez les Chouans, representing the universal themes of youth, family and old age.
He visited Étaples several times, where the port’s hustle and bustle offered him lively subjects, illustrated by canvases such as L’Arrivée du poisson and Retour des pêcheuses de crevettes, exhibited respectively at the 1907 and 1908 Salons.
He first experimented with this new medium during a trip to Switzerland in the autumn of 1908 where, working outdoors, he produced a radiant series of pastels exhibited in February of the following year at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris.19 The French government immediately acquired Lac Léman (Lake Geneva), a majestic and iconic scene depicted in a number of different versions, all concentrating on the shimmering expanse of water.
From the village of Chexbres, with its fine views of the lake, Bourgeois drew the snow-capped peaks of the Alps and the tops of russet trees standing out sharply against the clear azure of the sky.
Between the Bay of Agay and Le Trayas the bright red rocks, illuminated by the intense blue of the sea and the incomparable southern light, offered the two artists an exceptional panoramic subject and a chromatic impact that was utterly overwhelming for Bourgeois, as it had been for Guillaumin during his first visit in 1885.