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Edouard Vuillard, 'Madame André Wormser and her Children', 1926/7

About the work

This quiet domestic scene shows all the warmth and intimacy of Vuillard’s late paintings. We look into the elegant drawing room of a Parisian home – that of the Wormser family, at 27 rue Scheffer. The decoration reflects the taste of fashionable French society in the 1920s: pictures by Manet, Monet, Renoir and Roussel hang on the wall, and above the piano, obscured by the reflection of a striped sun canopy, is a large pastel by Degas.

Standing to the left is Madame Wormser, née Olga Boris, the wife of French banker André Wormser. Their four children – Diane, Sabine, Dominique and Olivier – are grouped in the brightly lit area on the right. Diane sits with the family’s pet dog at her feet and a musical score in her hands. Sabine, the youngest daughter, is next to her, absorbed in Dominique’s piano playing. Olivier, who later presented this picture to the National Gallery, stands at the back.

Key facts

Full title
Madame André Wormser and her Children
Artist
Edouard Vuillard
Artist dates
1868 - 1940
Date made
1926/7
Medium and support
oil on canvas
Dimensions
89.2 × 116.5 cm
Inscription summary
Signed
Acquisition credit
Presented by an Officer of General de Gaulle's Free French Navy in grateful remembrance of the years 1940-5, 1983
Inventory number
NG6488
Location
Not on display
Collection
Main Collection
Frame
18th-century French Frame

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

More works by Edouard Vuillard

La Terrasse at Vasouy, The Garden
La Terrasse at Vasouy, The Garden
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This painting was the left half of a decorative panel commissioned by Jean Schopfer, a writer who published under the pen name Claude Anet. In 1935, over 30 years after its completion, Vuillard cut the panel into two and reworked it; the other half, La Terrasse at Vasouy, The Lunch, is also in th...
Not on display
La Terrasse at Vasouy, The Lunch
La Terrasse at Vasouy, The Lunch
Edouard Vuillard
This painting was the right half of a decorative panel commissioned by Jean Schopfer, a writer who published under the pen name Claude Anet. In 1935, over 30 years after its completion, Vuillard cut the panel into two and reworked it; the other half, La Terrasse at Vasouy, the Garden, is also in...
Not on display
The Mantelpiece (La Cheminée)
The Mantelpiece (La Cheminée)
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This picture – a combination of interior scene and still-life painting – shows Vuillard’s room at Château-Rouge in Amfreville, Normandy. His friends Jos and Lucy Hessel rented the house for the summers of 1905, 1906 and 1907.A posy of wild flowers on the marble mantelpiece sits alongside a number...
On display elsewhere