It was he who introduced Monet to the then revolutionary doctrine that the effects of changing light and colour could best be achieved by painting a whole picture, rather than just the sketch, in the open air. Boudin taught Monet that 'everything that is painted directly on the spot always has a force, a power, a vivacity of touch that cannot be recreated in a studio'. Monet was later to pay glowing tribute to Boudin: If I have become a painter, it is entirely due to Eugene Boudin'. The donor T. W. Bacon was a collector for nearly 50 years, buying his first paintings in 1887. He was a close friend of Sir Charles Holmes, director of the National Gallery from 1916 to 1928, who with his wife was a frequent visitor to Bacon's Essex home, Ramsden Hall.