Edouard Vuillard

Hôtel Drouot, Paris June 19, 1934, Lot 83
A. Bergaud, Paris (acquired from the above sale)
Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 12, 1935, Lot 29
Fernand Javal, Paris (acquired from the above sale)
Confiscated from the above at the Chateau de Livry, 1940 *
Arthur Tooth & Sons, London
John Barrow, Great Britain (1949)
Arthur Tooth & Sons, London 
The Honorable Mrs. Anita Estelle Pleydell-Bouverie, London (1960)
Marlborough-Gerson Gallery Inc., New York 
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (acquired from the above in December 1963)

* This painting is being offered for sale pursuant for an agreement between the current owner and the heirs of Fernand Javal

London, Tate Gallery, Private Views, 1963, cat. no. 158 (titled Le Lit)
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, French Paintings from The Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Exhibition, 1941-1966, 1966, cat. no. 184, illustrated

The Central Office of Restitution in France, Répertoire des biens spoliés en France, 1947, cat. no. 3827, p. 171, illustrated
Antoine Salomon & Guy Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance, Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels, Milan, 2003, vol I, cat. no. VI-16, p. 469, illustrated

The work is in excellent condition. The work is on board. The colors are fresh and surface is stable. Under UV light, there are two thin horizontal lines of inpainting extending three inches from the left edge above center and two small spots in the bed at lower right.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Intimé dates from the height of Vuillard's Nabis period, when his pictures were at their most visually textured and saturated with color.  The room depicted here is one in Misia and Thadee Nathanson's summer cottage in Valvins, where Vuillard was a frequent house guest, along with the couple's other artist-friends.  Painted in 1896, this scene depicts a view of an occupied bedroom through an opened doorway.  The catalogue raisonne explains that the slumbering figure is Cipa Godebski, the young Polish sculptor, whom Vuillard depicted at closer view in two other oils around the same time.  In many of his depictions of the Nathanson's cottage, Vuillard delighted in manipulating the spatial perspective and creating views that exploited the oddities and bohemian spirit of the interior furnishings and its inhabitants.  The present work, with its unconscious subject enveloped beneath the bedclothes, is one of Vuillard's most voyeuristic of these pictures.