On loan: Long Loan to The Hugh Lane (2019 - 2026) (Group B), Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Dublin, Ireland 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 of bottles, artworks tucked behind them. Another picture hangs on the wall, far above the painting rags that are hanging up to dry. The richly decorated walls compete with the still-life arrangement on the mantelpiece. Despite this interplay between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional, the foreshortened mantelpiece, which appears to jut out of the picture, marks the artist’s move to a more naturalistic approach.
On the reverse of the painting there is a rapid sketch of three figures – a woman and two children – on a beach. The woman crouches down to pet one of the two dogs sat beside her.
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Martin Davies, with additions and some revisions by Cecil Gould, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: French School: Early 19th Century, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, etc.’, London 1970; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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.
