Vuillard’s father died when he was sixteen, leaving his mother to support the family as a dressmaker. She worked at home in a series of small Parisian apartments she shared with her son. This dimly lit scene, intimate to the point of claustrophobia, suggests the long hours she kept and the cramped conditions of her labor. Coupling family intimacy with a sense of foreboding, the picture is typical of the artist’s early work. Close contact with his mother’s trade—fabric, color, pattern, and silhouette—left an enduring mark on Vuillard’s style, still evident in much later works of far grander scale and ambition.
Details
- Artist Name: Édouard Vuillard (French, 1868-1940)
- Title: Dressmakers under the Lamp
- Date: c. 1891-1892
- Medium: Oil on cardboard
- Dimensions: 9 5/8 x 10 1/2 in. (24.4 x 26.7 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1979.41.2.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
Private Collection, Paris (probably Ker-Xavier Roussel) by 1943, to;
Jacques Salomon (son-in-law of Roussel), by 1955;
[Galerie La Cave, Paris, sold 1 October 1979 to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
L'Ecole de Pont-Aven et les Nabis
- Paris, Galerie Parvillée, 1943 to
Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) Charles Hug
- Kunsthalle Basel, 1949-03-26 to 1949-05-01
Edouard Vuillard
- Palazzo Reale, 1959-10 to 1959-11
Exposition Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940): Peintures, aquarelles, dessins
- Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, 1960-07-11 to 1960-09-25
Bonnard, Vuillard et les Nabis (1888-1903)
- Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, 1955-06-02 to 1955-10-02
By Day & By Night: Paris in the Belle Époque
- Norton Simon Museum, 2019-10-04 to 2020-03-02
Reinstallation of South Wing
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-10-07 to 1995-08-13
- Chastel, André, Art News Annual, p. 48
- The French Impressionists in Southern California: Paintings, Sculptures and Prints in Public Collections. A Guide Book and Catalogue, 1984,
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 171
- Easton, E. W., The Intimate Interiors of Edouard Vuillard, 1989, fig. 23 p. 44
- Cogeval, Guy, Vuillard. Le temps détourné, 1993,
- Salomon, Antoine; and Cogeval, Guy, Edouard Vuillard Catalogue Raisonne: Paintings and Pastels, 2003, fig. IV-77 p. 269
- 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. 1638 p. 429
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