Soleil couchant. Port d'Anvers Johan Barthold Jongkind, a Belgian-born painter, lived much of his life in France and particularly in the town of Honfleur. Jongkind was a key figure in the birth of Impressionism and a forerunner of the en plein air painting that would be its dominant feature. In Honfleur, Jongkind met a young Monet, who, still searching for his own style, would become passionate about his painting and use his methods and compositional style. Monet would later go on to say that he owed a great debt to Jongkind, and that for him, the encounter with this master was like "having finally been given the gift of eyes to see". “Soleil couchant. Port d'Anvers” was etched in 1868. This wonderful etching had four different states, and various landscape drawings were made on this same subject. This etching, of fundamental importance in Jongkind's oeuvre, perfectly renders the movements of the air, the central role of water and the play and reflections of the sky in it, with the last light of the sun setting at the end of the scene. Above this twilight mist, the last rays of the sun illuminate the clouds. A luminous effect in the center of the depiction, as well as in the two churches on the left, is achieved with the use of the “brunissoire”, a tool that allowed one to work the copper plate to achieve brighter effects. The artist leaves us with a glimpse of life in this port at sunset, giving us the impression of being present within this beautiful scene. The work is treated in a direct style, charged with power and emotion, which already contains all the characteristics of Impressionism, six years before its appearance. Monet was strongly influenced by this etching, to the point of drawing inspiration for his work “Impression, soleil levant”, which then famously gave its name to the movement. He owed a great debt of gratitude to Jongkind and his friend Boudin, from whom he learnt the pleasure of a free, airy painting capable of "letting the air of nature breathe".