Édouard Vuillard

Antoine Salomon, Paris
Acquired by the family of the present owner circa 1964

Milan, Palazzo Reale, Édouard Vuillard, 1959, no. 71, illustrated in the catalogue
Albi, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Édouard Vuillard, 1960, no. 52
Paris, Durand-Ruel, É. Vuillard (1868-1940), 1961, no. 46, illustrated in the catalogue
New York, Wildenstein & Co., Vuillard, 1964. no. 49, illustrated in the catalogue

Claude Roger-Marx, Vuillard. Intérieurs, Paris & Lausanne, 1968, illustrated pl. 13
Antoine Salomon & Guy Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance, Critical Catalogue of the Paintings and Pastels, Paris, 2003,  vol. II, no. VIII-286, illustrated in colour p. 960

Paper laid down on canvas. There do not appear to be any signs of retouching visible under UV light. There are a few protruding lines in places, probably creases to the sheet which occurred during the laying down process. There are three spots of paint loss to the upper right quadrant. This work is in overall good condition.
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Painted in 1909, Sous la grande lampe à Saint-Jacut is a wonderful example of Édouard Vuillard’s life-long interest in domestic interiors. This work depicts a summer day in Saint-Jacut, the rented home of Jos and Lucy Hessel, the couple that Vuillard spent each summer with from 1901 until his death in 1940. From 1901 to 1914, when World War I made such holidays impossible, they spent these summers in Normandy or Brittany, where studied relaxation was the paramount means of occupation.

Vuillard was also a consummate photographer, leaving over two thousand images after his death. The pictures he took with his Kodak roll film camera, an invention of the 1880s, would often be used in his later paintings and the immediacy of the present lot is testament to his experiments with the camera. Sous la grande lampe à Saint-Jacut was executed using distemper, a medium that he began to use more and more frequently. Kimberly Jones writes: 'These two summers Vuillard spent in Brittany [1908-09]—and especially the summer at Saint-Jacut—were intensely productive. The paintings he produced are exceptionally striking, in large part because of a growing preference for the medium of peinture à la colle, or distemper' (Édouard Vuillard (exhibition catalogue), The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. & travelling, 2003-04, pp. 449-450).