This painting depicts the city of Le Tréport in Normandy during a fireworks display for Bastille' day. The painting captures the brilliant colors and explosions of the fireworks in the night sky, as well as the illuminated town and its reflection on the water. An assortment of sailboats carry spectators of the event.

Theodore Earl Butler was born in Ohio but spent much of his career abroad in France, where he became an intimate friend of Claude Monet at Giverny. He eventually married the famed French Impressionist’s step-daughter, Suzanne Hoschedé. Butler eventually returned to the United States when World War I broke out, and he completed a number of important mural commissions and other paintings in New York.

This work will be included in Patrick Bertrand's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the work of Theodore Earl Butler.