Friday, 11 September 2026

Édouard Vuillard -part 4

Self Portrait in a Mirror
oil on board laid down on cradled panel 27.3 x 21.4 cm

Édouard Vuillard born at Cuiseaux, Sâone-et-Loire, the son of a retired army officer. The family moved to Paris in 1877 and Vuillard became a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1886, later moving to the Académie Julian. There he met Bonnard and other painters with whom he founded the Nabis in 1889 (the name derived from the Hebrew for prophet). The group, influenced by Gauguin and Degas, concentrated on pattern and distortion to emphasise psychological meanings beyond appearances in ordinary domestic subjects, though Bonnard and  Vuillard executed from 1892 to 1937 large decorative schemes, including stage scenery. He was elected to the Institute in 1938. The National Gallery, London

This is part 4 of a 6-part series on the work of Édouard Vuillard:

1902 The Table
oil on compressed card 25.4 x 34.3 cm
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, UK

1902 Red Interior
oil on tan paper mounted to cradled panel 37.1 x 51.1 cm
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

c1902-03 The open door
oil on cardboard 53.5 x 40 cm

c1902-03 reworked 1915 The Open Window
oil on millboard 56.9 x 45 cm
National Galleries of Scotland: Modern

1902-03 Woman in white seated
oil on board 24.8 x 35.2 cm

c1902-04 Woman sitting in a bright interior
oil on board laid down on cradled panel 38.2 x 47.1 cm

c1903 Reclining Nude
oil on canvas 76.2 x 60.2 cm

c1903 Model removing her stockings
oil on board 54.8 x 48 cm

c1903 Breakfast
oil on board 32.3 x 43.5 cm

c1903-04 Two roses and the box of pastels
oil on canvas 33.4 x 41.4 cm

c1904 Madame Arthur Fontaine in pink
oil on board laid down on cradled panel 62.8 x 57.2 cm

c1904 Jos Hessel and his wife, Rue de Rivoli
oil on board 62.4 x 61.7 cm

c1904-05 Madame Arthur Fontaine

Marie Escudier Fontaine appears to be enjoying a quiet moment at home in this portrait, one of many that Edouard Vuillard painted of her. Vuillard emphasized the intimacy of the scene through his compression of space, achieved by the unusual viewpoint from above and behind, and through his use of flat patches of color and pattern. The artist first developed a friendship with Marie and her husband Arthur Fontaine, and maintained his close relationship with Marie following her divorce from Fontaine in 1905. A pianist herself, she socialized within a circle of prominent artists, musicians, writers, and patrons, including Post-Impressionists like Vuillard.

Art Institute of Chicago, IL

c1904-05 Madame Arthur Fontaine (Marie Escudier Fontaine) in a pink shawl
gouache and oil on cardboard mounted on cardboard
50.2 x 43.8 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1904 Mme Arthur Fontaine at the piano
oil on board mounted on cradled panel 54.6 x 62.2 cm

1905 The Mantelpiece

This picture – a combination of interior scene and still-life painting – shows Vuillard’s room at Château-Rouge in Amfreville, Normandy. His friends Jos and Lucy Hessel rented the house for the summers of 1905, 1906 and 1907. A posy of wild flowers on the marble mantelpiece sits alongside a number of bottles, artworks tucked behind them. Another picture hangs on the wall, far above the painting rags that are hanging up to dry. The richly decorated walls compete with the still-life arrangement on the mantelpiece. Despite this interplay between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional, the foreshortened mantelpiece, which appears to jut out of the picture, marks the artist’s move to a more naturalistic approach.

The National Gallery, London

1905 The Mantelpiece
oil on cardboard 51.4 x 77.5 cm
The National Gallery, London

1905 Portrait of Йоса Хесселя
oil on cardboard 86.5 x 66.5 cm

1905 Lady in green
oil on millboard 30.2 x 22.5 cm
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, UK

1905 Guelder Roses and the Venus of Milo
oil on cardboard 76 x 62.4 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1905 Confidence, the Bernheim children at the living room
oil on board laid down on cradled panel 57 x 77.5 cm

c1905 Madame Hessel in a red dress reading
oil on cardboard 39.5 x 36.6 cm

c1905 Le Salon des Hessels, Rue de Rivoli
oil on board laid down on cradled panel 35.2 x 58.1 cm

1905-07 Madame Hessel at sunset
oil on canvas 60.2 x 73.1 cm

1905-07 Anemones on a small table
oil on canvas 59.4 x 772.4 cm

1906 The dressing room, Madame Hessel reading at Amfreville
oil and tempera on cardboard 49.5 x 63.2 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

c1907 Portrait of Lucy Hessel in a Musketeer hat
oil on cardboard 86.1 x 64.9 cm

c1907-08 The visitor
peinture à la colle on canvas 72.2 x 60.2 cm

1907 White Roses
oil on board 29 x 28.2 cm

1908 The streets of Paris, 4 signs for Henry Bernstein:

1908 "La Tour Eiffel"
peinture à la colle over charcoal on joined paper laid down on panel 200 x 47.4 cm
 

1908 "The child at the stream"
peinture à la colle over charcoal on joined paper laid down on panel 200 x 47.4 cm
 

1908 "The Road"
peinture à la colle over charcoal on paper laid down on panel 198.2 x 68 cm 

1908 "The watering truck"
peinture à la colle over charcoal on paper laid down on panel 198.4 x 68.4 cm

c1908-09 The Metro Wagon
glue-based distemper on paper laid down on canvas
57.9 x 54.6 cm

c1908 The laden table
pastel on paper on board 47 x 54.6 cm
Tate Gallery, London

1909-10 Place Vintimille
peinture à la colle over charcoal on paper laid down on panel

1909-10 Title?
peinture à la colle over charcoal on paper laid down on panel

1909-10 Title?
peinture à la colle over charcoal on paper laid down on panel

1909-10 Place Vintimille
200.1 x 70 cm

1909-11 The meal
oil on canvas 53 x 51 cm
Birmingham Museums Trust, UK


1909 reworked in 1924
Windmill in Saint-Jacut or Les Villas
peinture à la colle on paper laid down on canvas 85 x 106.4 cm

1910 The study room at the Pavilions
 peinture à la colle on buff paper 58.4 x 44.5 cm

1910 Interior with Madame Hessel and her dog
oil on cardboard on panel 73.9 x 86.4 cm
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, UK



Wednesday, 9 September 2026

Édouard Vuillard -part 3

Édouard Vuillard born at Cuiseaux, Sâone-et-Loire, the son of a retired army officer. The family moved to Paris in 1877 and Vuillard became a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1886, later moving to the Académie Julian. There he met Bonnard and other painters with whom he founded the Nabis in 1889 (the name derived from the Hebrew for prophet). The group, influenced by Gauguin and Degas, concentrated on pattern and distortion to emphasise psychological meanings beyond appearances in ordinary domestic subjects, though Bonnard and  Vuillard executed from 1892 to 1937 large decorative schemes, including stage scenery. He was elected to the Institute in 1938. The National Gallery, London

This is part 3 of a 6-part series on the work of Édouard Vuillard:

1899 Landscapes and Interiors: A portfolio of twelve lithographs and lithographed cover

Cover: Interiors
59.5 x 44.2 cm

Interior with Ceiling Lamp
38.5 x 30.3 cm

Interior with Pink Wallpaper
39.2 x 30.7 cm

Interior with Pink Wallpaper
39.2 x 31.1 cm
 

Interior with Pink Wallpaper
37.4 x 30 cm

On the Bridge of Europe
33.3 x 39.4 cm

The Avenue
lithograph 32 x 44 cm

The Cook
36.7 x 29.2 cm

The Game of Checkers
lithograph 37.7 x 30.7 cm

The Hearth
40.3 x 32.7 cm

The Pastry Shop
40.3 x 31.8 cm

The Two Sisters-in-Law
38.4 x 31.5 cm

Through the Fields
31.3 x 40.6 cm
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
1899 The Game of Checkers
colour lithograph on greyish-ivory laid paper
37.4 x 28.2 cm (image)
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1899 Misia and Vallotton in Villeneuve
oil on board laid down on cradled panel 70.2 x 51.1 cm

c1899 Woman in blue with a child
oil on compressed card 48.6 x 56.5 cm
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, UK

c1899 The painter Maximilien Luce in his studio
oil on board 25.1 x 37.8 cm

c1899 The Avenue
colour lithograph with pastel and gouache on greyish-ivory China paper 32.5 x42 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

c1899 Thadée Natanson at his desk
oil on cardboard mounted on cradled panel 47 x 56.5 cm
Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, New York

c1899-1900 reworked 1908
glue-based paint on canvas 240 x 154.3 cm

1899-1900 The Daisies
oil on board laid down on cradled pane 33 x 44.4 cm

1900 Madame Vuillard arranging her hair
oil on millboard 49.5 x 35.5 cm
The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham, UK

1900 Landscape - House on the left
oil on board 67.5 x 58.5 cm
Tate Gallery, London

c1900-01 Pot of flowers
oil on millboard 48.5 x 62 cm 
National Galleries of Scotland, UK

1900-01 Child with cup
oil on board laid down on cradled panel 48.6 x 62.3 cm

1900-01 Anemones in a Chinese vase
oil on canvas 30.5 x 25.1 cm

1900-02 Nude in the apartment on Rue Truffaut
oil on canvas 65.5 x 81.5 cm

c1900 The blue inkwell on the mantelpiece
oil on brown paper laid on pane 33.6 x 40.6 cm
Norfolk Museums Service

c1900 Mr. and Mrs. Alexandre Vuillard
glue and sand paint on beige paper 55 x 59.2 cm

c1900 Garden seen from above
oil on tan cardboard 30.7 x 51.5 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

c1900 Child playing: Annette Roussel in front of a wooden chair
oil on cardboard 43.8 x 57/8 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

c1900-08 Madame Hessel on a sofa
oil on board 54.6 x 54.6 cm
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK

c1900 Woman in an interior, the artist's mother, rue Truffaut
oil on canvas 32 x 31.5 cm

c1900 Winter
oil on canvas 34.7 x 25.7 cm

c1900 The Garden
oil on board laid down on cradled panel  48 x 31 cm

c1900 The candlestick
oil on millboard 43.6 x 75.8 cm
National Galleries of Scotland, UK

c1901 Portrait of Madame Delierre, known as Symphony in Red
oil on board laid down on cradled panel 58.5 x 64.8 cm

1901, reworked 1935 The Terrace at Vasouy,

This painting was the right half of a decorative panel commissioned by Jean Schopfer, a writer who published under the pen name Claude Anet. In 1935, over 30 years after its completion, Vuillard cut the panel into two and reworked it; the other half, La Terrasse at Vasouy, the Garden, is also in the National Gallery’s collection. Many members of this elegant group were part of the literary and artistic scene in Paris. From left to right are the artist Pierre Bonnard, Madame Alice Schopfer and Monsieur Jean Schopfer, the novelist Romain Coolus, Misia Natanson, Lucy Hessel, Madame ‘Bob’ Schopfer and Monsieur Louis Schopfer and the writer Tristan Bernard. Lucy Hessel, who was married to Vuillard’s patron Jos Hessel, was the host of this gathering in 1901.

The National Gallery, London


1901 (reworked 1935) The terrace at Vasouy, the lunch
distemper on canvas 218.4 x 190 cm
The National Gallery, London

1901 The Garden in front of the studio
colour lithograph on greyish-ivory China paper
 63 x 47.2 cm (image)
Art Institute of Chicago, IL

1901 Lucy Hessel visiting Cricquebœuf
oil on board 30.3 x 52.7 cm

1901 Interior: The drawing room
oil on compressed card 35.5 x 52.7 cm
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, UK

1901 Four people on a balcony
oil on board laid down on panel 39.7 x 43.8 cm


1902 Interior with rocking chairs
oil on board mounted on cradled panel 66.2 x 54 cm

1902 A woman by an open door, with two small children seated below a sink
drawing - medium?
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK