The Lunatic of Étretat

A woman waiting on the shore

A young woman with wild, windswept hair sits on a stone ledge, clutching a bundle wrapped in cloth as if it were a baby. Her eyes are dark and fixed. The French painter Hugues Merle called the picture The Lunatic of Étretat, after the Normandy fishing village.

He painted it in 1871. It belongs to the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, New York.

A haunted face

Her hair blows across her face. Her expression is intense and distant, as if she were lost in her own world.

A bundle held close

She holds the bundle tightly with both arms, a red cloth wrapped around it. Whether it is a real child or only an imagined one is left uncertain, which adds to the sadness of the scene.

Questions about The Lunatic of Étretat

Who painted it?

The French painter Hugues Merle (1823 to 1881), in 1871.

Where is it?

Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, New York.

Where is Étretat?

A fishing village on the coast of Normandy.

What is she holding?

A wrapped bundle she holds like a baby.

Sources and image credit

• Wikimedia Commons: The Lunatic, Arnot Art Museum

Public-domain reproduction of The Lunatic of Étretat (1871), via Wikimedia Commons. Detail images are crops of the same image; no reconstruction or upscaling.