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Oil on canvas, stamped ‘E Vuillard’ (Lugt 2497a). Painted in 1887-88.
Canvas size: 18 x 25.5in / 46 x 65cm
Frame size: 30 x 37.5in / 76 x 95cm
Painted in 1887-88, Nature morte au chou is one of the earliest works ever created by Édouard Vuillard. As this work testifies, and as Claude Roger-Marx describes, “Vuillard began by painting small subjects in which the qualities that have always constituted the grace and prestige of the French School are affirmed. Through the search for similar values and tones, the importance given to grays, the horror of grandiloquence, at twenty he already appears as a descendant of the Master of Moulins, of Lesueur, of Chardin, and of Puvis. Everything he would later express with greater force is in embryo in the still lifes executed during the years 1887 and 1888…
Artist’s studio.
Sam Salz, New York.
Nate B. and Frances Spingold, New York (in 1951); their sale, Sotheby’s, London, November 29, 1976, lot 12 (titled ‘Still Life – After the Meal’).
Daniel Malingue (Galerie Agora), Paris (acquired at this sale).
Galería Guereta, Madrid.
Private collection, Madrid (acquired from the above in November 1976).
Thence by descent.
Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Vuillard , October 1946, no. 28 (not in catalogue).
Vienna, Palais Lobkowitz, Institut Français, Ausstellung Französischer Meister um 1900 (schule von Gauguin) , October-November 1949, p. II, no. 47 (erroneously dated ‘1892’).
Cleveland, The Cleveland Art Museum and New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Édouard Vuillard , January-June 1954, p. 100 (illustrated, p. 30).
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Nate and Frances Spingold Collection , 1960, p. 6.
New York, Wildenstein, Vuillard , October-November 1964, p. 14, no. 2 (illustrated; titled ‘Still Life’ and dated ‘1889-90’).
(loan) New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1965-1966.
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Summer Loan Exhibition, Paintings from Private Collections , summer 1967, no. 111.
C. Roger-Marx, Vuillard et son temps , Paris, 1945, p. 45.
M. Raynal, Peinture Moderne , Geneva, 1953, p. 32.
C. Roger-Marx, Vuillard, Intérieurs , Paris, 1968, p. 6.
F. Davis, ‘Vuillard’s domestic view of the arty set’, in Art & Antiques , March 26, 1977, No. 4, p. 18 (illustrated).
B. Thomson, Vuillard , Oxford, 1988, pp. 12 and 16.
A. Salomon and G. Cogeval, Vuillard, Le Regard innombrable, Catalogue critique des peintures et pastels , Paris, 2003, vol. I, p. 10, no. I-2 (illustrated).
To enquire about this painting, please call us on +44 (0)20 7968 1830 or email us at enquiries@willowgallery.com. Alternatively use the contact form below.
Title: Nature morte au chou Artist Name: Édouard VuillardJean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter, decorative artist, and printmaker. From 1891 until 1900, Vuillard was a prominent member of the avant garde artistic group Les Nabis, creating paintings that assembled areas of pure colour. His interior scenes, influenced by Japanese prints, explored the spatial effects of flattened planes of colour, pattern, and form. As a decorative artist, Vuillard painted theatre sets, panels for interior decoration, and designed plates and stained glass. After 1900, when the Nabis broke up, Vuillard adopted a more realistic style, approaching landscapes and interiors with greater detail and vivid colors.
Many of Vuillard’s paintings of the turn of the century are small in scale and depict apparently mundane interiors or record everyday episodes in domestic, middle-class life. These were subjects few other artists thought worthy of attention. His paintings of this type are usually referred to as ‘intimiste’.
The effects of the light became primary components of his paintings, whether they were interior scenes or the parks and streets of Paris. Vuillard gradually returned to naturalism. He held his second large personal exhibition at the Gallerie Bernheim-Jeune in November 1908, where he presented many of his new landscapes. Vuillard was praised by one anti-modernist critic for ‘his delicious protest against systematic deformations.’
After 1920, Vuillard was increasingly occupied painting portraits for wealthy and distinguished Parisians. He preferred to use the technique of ‘peinture à la colle sur toile’, or distemper technique, which allowed him to create more precise details and richer colour effects. His subjects ranged from the actor and director Sacha Guitry to the fashion designer Jeanne Lanvin, Lanvin’s daughter, the Contesse Marie-Blanche de Polignac, the inventor and aviation pioneer Marcel Kapferer, and the actress Jane Renouardt. He usually presented his subjects in their studios or homes or backstage, with lavishly detailed backgrounds, wallpaper, furnishings and carpets.
In 1938, Vuillard was elected to the Académie des Beaux Arts in February, and in July, the Musée des Arts Decoratifs presented a major retrospective of his paintings. Later in the year, he traveled to Geneva to oversee the installation of his mural ‘Peace, Protector of the Arts’ at the League of Nations Building.
In 1940, Vuillard completed his last two portraits. He suffered from pulmonary difficulties and traveled to La Baule in Loire-Atlantique to restore his health, but died there on 21 June 1940.