Édouard Vuillard

A. Leroy, Paris
Sale: Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, March 30, 1949, lot 36
Fernand & Beatrice Leval, New York (acquired at the above sale and sold by the estate: Christie's, New York, May 5, 2005, lot 202)
Private Collection (acquired at the above sale and sold: Christie's, New York, May 7, 2008, lot 314)
Acquired at the above sale

New York, Wildenstein & Co., Inc., Masterpieces in Bloom, 1973, no. 68

Antoine Salomon & Guy Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance, Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels, vol. II, Paris, 2003, no. VIII-128, illustrated p. 890

Vuillard achieves here a near perfect balance between the decorative and abstract tendencies of the Nabis movement and the new realism of the period following the turn of the century. The division of the composition into rectangular zones as well as the mixture of a variety of decorative motifs recall the style of the 1890s. However, the different motifs remain distinct and the technique varies according to the subject matter. The clever distribution of shadow and light contrast with the abstract painted wall, creates the effect of perspective by situating each object in real space. 

This still life represents Vuillard's stylistic developments, expressing his attraction to abstraction all the while confirming this commitment to the naturalist ideas that were in vogue at the time. However, this painting could equally be seen as a reflection of the artist’s state of mind and emotions. It was these private sentiments that Gide would recall several years later when he reviewed Vuillard’s work at the Salon d’Automne: “[Vuillard] is the most intimate of the story-tellers… I think it must be because his brush never breaks free of the emotion which guides it; the outer world, for Vuillard, is always a pretext, an adjustable means of expression" (André Gide, "Promenade au Salon d’Automne," in La Gazette des Beaux-Arts, December 1, 1905).