Artist: François d’Orléans, prince de Joinville (1818-1900)
Title: Sur la plage, les bains de mer (English: On the beach sea bathing)
Medium: Watercolor
Date: before 1900
What I love about this painting:
I first featured this painting in July of 2023. The wild sense of humor shown in this portrayal of upper-class Victorian-era people on vacation beside the sea absolutely captivated me. François d’Orléans spills the gossip in this watercolor seascape: they weren’t all as prim and proper as history would like us to believe.
I love the hilarity, the wild abandon they feel at being temporarily freed of “proper” clothing and society’s rules of politeness. When the holiday is over, they’ll have to behave. But for now, the sun is shining, the waters are warm, and the day is just getting started.
The two young men who are clowning around, one leaping over the back of the other make me laugh. They remind me of my husband’s college fraternity days circa 1978. (He did outgrow it, but some of their pranks were hilarious.)
Everyone is having fun on this glorious day beside the sea, except perhaps the woman being drenched by a bucket of water. So much action! It was a party, and François d’Orléans, Prince de Joinville recorded it with his own unique style.
About the Artist, via Wikipedia:
François d’Orléans, Prince de Joinville (14 August 1818 – 16 June 1900) was the third son of Louis Philippe, King of the French, and his wife Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily. An admiral of the French Navy, François was famous for bringing the remains of Napoleon from Saint Helena to France, as well as being a talented artist, with 35 known watercolours.
He married Princess Francisca of Brazil, daughter of Emperor Pedro I and sister of Emperor Pedro II. The dowry received by François upon the marriage became the Brazilian city of Joinville.
François and Francisca’s grandson Jean went on to become the Orléanist claimant to the extinct French throne, a claim passed on to his son, grandson and now great-grandson Jean, Count of Paris, current Orléanist claimant to the French crown.
Credits and Attributions:
IMAGE: Sur la plage, les bains de mer by François d’Orléans, prince de Joinville. Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:François d’Orléans – Sur la plage, les bains de mer.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Fran%C3%A7ois_d%27Orl%C3%A9ans_-_Sur_la_plage,_les_bains_de_mer.jpg&oldid=757902107 (accessed June 11, 2026).
Wikipedia contributors, “François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fran%C3%A7ois_d%27Orl%C3%A9ans,_Prince_of_Joinville&oldid=1160992832 (accessed June 11, 2026).
Life in the Realm of Fantasy 