Édouard Vuillard

Estate of the artist
Wildenstein & Co., New York
Hans Neumann, New York (acquired by circa 1964)
Private Collection
Sale: Christie's, New York, November 9, 1999, lot 248
Acquired at the above sale

New York, Wildenstein & Co., Vuillard, Loan Exhibition for Benefit of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1964, no. 55, illustrated in the catalogue

Antoine Salomon & Guy Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance, Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels, vol. II, Paris, 2003, no. VIII-401, illustrated in color p. 1010

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During the summer of 1912, Vuillard stayed in Loctudy, a village on the coast of Brittany. At this time, as the size of the present works suggests, Vuillard often worked on large-scale compositions. He was commissioned in 1911 to create a multi-panel installation Jos and Gaston Bernheim's summer villa at Viller-sur-mer in Normady. There were at least thirteen panels for this for installation, completed between 1911-13. The present work depicts an interior scene where a young child in bright red and blue shares a quite moment with a seated woman in a pink hat, her delicate facial features the most resolved aspect of the composition; another woman sits to the viewer's right, arms propped on the table. Behind the figures the wallpaper or tapestry, decorated with rose-colored birds, is evoked through sweeping, energetic brushstrokes. 

Vuillard had become increasingly interested and focused on portraiture in the early part of the twentieth century. “'I don’t paint portraits, I paint people in their homes.' Vuillard did not consider himself a portraitist. Yet not the least of the paradoxes posed by this rich fact of his oeuvre is that the portraits made a decisive contribution toward confirming his status among twentieth–century critics... Vuillard actually began to be interested in portraiture as such around 1905… Portraits focus principally on models, and thus on encounters and surrounding. Vuillard’s new interest in the genre was clearly linked to the radical changes then taking place in his professional and social life. After signing a contract the with the Galerie Bernhaim-Jeune he found his social circle expanding, and he was soon mixing with the wealthy grande bourgeoisie and frequenting the world of the théâtre de boulevard" (Guy Cogeval, Édouard Vuillard (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris & Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2003-04, p. 356).