Édouard Vuillard

Galerie René Drouin, Paris (acquired directly from the artist)
Howard Young, New York
Knoedler Gallery, New York
Preston H. Long, New York (acquired by 1959)
Ellen Lehman Long (by descent from the above)
Grace Borgenicht, New York (acquired by 1978)
Hall Collection, Forth Worth (acquired circa 1986)
Ruth O'Hara Fine Art, New York
Acquired from the above in November 1986

Art & Antiques, February, 1986, illustrated in color n.p.
Antoine Salomon & Guy Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance, Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels, vol. II, Paris, 2003, no. IX-178, illustrated in color p. 1125

Executed on medium brown paper which has been laid down on canvas. There is very minor time fading to the paper commensurate with age. The pigments are extremely fresh and strong. There is a minor crease to the paper in the upper left quadrant, by the left edge and a light scratch to the surface in the upper right corner. There are some minor scuffs to the paper and pigment in the upper right and upper left corners. There are further scuffs and losses to the pigment in a cluster in the upper part of the composition, just below the top edge. Each of these is just about visible in the catalog illustration, is no greater than a nail head and does not detract from the overall impression of the work. The work is in very good condition.
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Les Deux cousins is a striking example of Vuillard’s fascination with domestic interiors. Composition was one of the artist’s major concerns and—along with tonal gradation—allowed him to create novel ways to reinterpret familiar scenes. As discussed by Elizabeth Wynne Easton, the interior “was also the locus of the home industry, a place where Vuillard observed the quiet dignity of labor and its characteristic gestures. But it was family life, confined within these ever-present walls, that aroused [the artist’s] most powerful emotions. His interiors function as theaters within which the family enacted the consuming drama of everyday experience” (quoted in The Intimate Interiors of Edouard Vuillard (exhibition catalogue), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1990, p. 4).

Les Deux cousins is an exploration of intimacy, here between cousins Lucy Hessel and Marcelle Aron, repeated subjects in Vuillard’s oeuvre. The present work is a preparatory sketch for another work of the same subject and name, with this pastel executed with greater tonal variety, thereby better conveying the Nabis aesthetic. Spatial uncertainty and the artist’s dazzling touches of color allow the viewer to fully immerse in the Nabis’ concept of conferring meaning beyond the visual, drawing us closer to the “new spirit and sensibility in things and places that are familiar” (ibid., p. 35). By employing his signature blurring of faces and positioning the women inwardly away from the viewer, Vuillard makes the focal point of the drawing the fabrics and colors that situate the women in their interior. In so doing, Vuillard echoes Dutch master Johannes Vermeer in composition, subject matter, and the effects of light upon time suspended. Contrary to Vermeer, however, Vuillard captures the hazy experience of distinguishing forms from patterns to underscore his medium and flattening of forms.

Vuillard’s meticulous interest and reinterpretation of interiors likely appealed to former owner Mrs. Ellen Long, founder of Ellen L. McCluskey Associates, a New York design company. Mrs. Long was an internationally known interior decorator, whose decorating credits included the Regency Hotel and the lobbies and grand ballrooms of the Plaza and Waldorf-Astoria Hotels in New York.