Notes

Edouard Vuillard was part of a secret brotherhood, The Nabis (Hebrew for Prophets) founded in 1888 by French artists and theoreticians Maurice Denis (1870–1943) and Paul Sérusier (1864–1927). Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard, arguably the two most famous members of the group, joined a couple of years later. The group basically objected to the photographic naturalism taught by most French art academies at the time. They preferred a strong spiritual element in their art and in this regard, their work can be related to the Nazarenes in Germany and the Pre-Raphaelites in England. Paul Gauguin (1848–1903), chief mentor of the Nabis, famously taught art classes en plein air and members were struck by his manner: ‘How do you see those trees? They are yellow. Well then, put down yellow. And that shadow is rather blue. Render it with pure aquamarine. Those red leaves? Use vermillion.’¹ When Sérusier showed the group his resultant painting after the class, it seemed so daring and original that they believed it exuded mystical powers. Considering the shades of yellow and blue in the current lot, Vuillard could well have attended Gauguin’s class.

Vuillard is best known for his portraiture and his intimate, domestic interiors. His usual subject matter was women and children huddled around a table in a dining room. Characteristic of these interiors is the fact that perspective seems to be obviated: the wall paper in the background has the same patterning as the cloth on the table and the carpet in the foreground, resulting in an overall uniform surface devoid of any sense of perspective. The present lot moves the group of people from an interior into plein air, but ironically rendered it as abstract as the interiors. Nature is as intimate as an interior. Small wonder that Vuillard is known today as one of the French Intimists of the late-19th century.

Certified by The Art Loss Register: Not registered as stolen or missing according to their database.

¹ Amy Dempsey (2002). The Essential Encyclopaedic Guide to Modern Art: Styles, Schools and Movements, London: Thames & Hudson, page 51.

Provenance

Georges Maratier, Paris
Silvan Kocher, Solothurn (Switzerland)
Sold: Christie's, London, 23 June 1986, lot 30
Dennis Hotz, Sandton (South Africa).

Exhibited

Vevey, Musée Jenisch, Paris 1900, July - Sept 1954, no. 214 bis.

Literature

Antoine Salomon, Guy Cogeval, Edouard Vuillard, Mathias Chivot (2003). Vuillard: Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels. Paris: Skira and Wildenstein Institute. Illustrated in colour on page 1017.