NARRATOR:
Depending on your viewpoint, this small domestic interior may seem cozy and warm . . . or small and confining. Many of Edouard Vuillard’s paintings from the 1890s are like this. We see only one corner of the room. No door is included in the view. The woman rests on what appears to be a couch, but its exact shape is unclear. Still, careful use of line gives definition to the large areas of color. You can see this at the edge of the woman’s skirt, and along her left shoulder. The colors are unusual—subtle gray, gold and ochre tones brought together around the deep rosy red of the sofa.
The intimate setting reflects the closeness Vuillard felt towards the sitter and her family. Lucie Hessel was a good friend of his, and was in all likelihood, the artist’s mistress. Her husband Jos was an art dealer and collector, and Vuillard was godfather to their child. He inscribed this painting in the upper right, “to my friend Lucie Hessel,” and the work was in the Hessel family for many years. Vuillard often spent weekends in the Hessel’s home and felt very comfortable there. Along with Lucie, he repeatedly turned to many other of his close friends and family as subjects, but he did not think of his works as portraits.
EDOUARD VUILLARD (actor):
“I don’t paint portraits. I paint people at home.”
Lucie Hessel
c. 1905
Édouard Vuillard (French, 1868-1940)
On View
Vuillard liked to say, “I do not paint portraits. I paint people in their homes.” And indeed, pictures like this one enlist domestic surroundings to suggest their sitters’ personalities and relationships to the artist. Here casually posed in a room crowded with picture frames, Lucie Hessel was the wife of Vuillard’s dealer. She was also the artist’s friend, his confidant, his muse and, ultimately, his lover, the subject of over a hundred paintings. An inscription in the upper right-hand corner of this portrait indicates that Vuillard painted it as a gift for her.
Details
- Artist Name: Édouard Vuillard (French, 1868-1940)
- Title: Lucie Hessel
- Date: c. 1905
- Medium: Oil on cardboard
- Dimensions: 16 x 18 in. (40.6 x 45.7 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1977.01.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
Jos (d. 1942) and Lucie Hessel, Paris, ca. 1900, still in 1930.
Louis Carré, Paris.
Vivian Prins, London.
[Lefévre Gallery, London, sold 6 January 1977 to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Louis Carré, Paris.
Vivian Prins, London.
[Lefévre Gallery, London, sold 6 January 1977 to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Vuillard
- Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 1948 to
By Day & By Night: Paris in the Belle Époque
- Norton Simon Museum, 2019-10-04 to 2020-03-02
Gaze: Portraiture After Ingres
- Norton Simon Museum, 2009-10-30 to 2010-04-05
Reinstallation of South Wing
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-10-07 to 1995-08-13
- Bernard, Tristan, La Renaissance, p. 22
- Wichmann, Die Kunst und das schöne Heim, pp. 354-357
- Salomon, Antoine; and Cogeval, Guy, Edouard Vuillard Catalogue Raisonne: Paintings and Pastels, fig. VII-345 p. 712
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 171
- Chastel, André, Vuillard, 1990, pp. 60, 70-71
- Brettell, Richard R. and Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum, volume 1, 2006,
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 1395 p. 402
Additional Artwork by Artist
Landscapes and Interiors: Across the Fields (Paysages et Intérieurs: À Travers Champs)
Édouard Vuillard
1899
Landscapes and Interiors: Album Cover (Paysages et Intérieurs: Couverture de l’Album)
Édouard Vuillard
1899
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