Édouard Vuillard - Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York Wednesday, May 15, 2024 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • “Who speaks of art speaks of poetry. There is no art without a poetic aim. There is a species of emotion particular to painting. There is an effect that results from a certain arrangement of colors, of lights, of shadows, etc. It is this that one calls the music of painting.” 
    —Édouard Vuillard

    In the corner of her adorned home, a woman, submerged in the dark silhouette of her gown, sits at a piano, reading the notes to the song which she is about to play. The decorative objects surrounding her, painted in gestural brushstrokes with twirl like vines, seems to swirl around the room, mirroring the music that is about to permeate the space. Illustrating the wife of a wealthy Parisian industrialist and art patron, Édouard Vuillard’s Mme Arthur Fountaine au piano, 1904, illustrates an engaging view of interior domestic life of turn of the century France.

     

    Edouard Vuillard, Madame Arthur Fontaine in a Pink Shawl, 1903, The Art Institute of Chicago. Image: The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY 

    Introduced to Arthur Fontaine, state counselor and minister of labor, by his fellow-Nabis painter Maurice Denis in 1897, Vuillard would go on to paint both him and his wife several times throughout his career. The Fontaines were part of a cohort of new collectors, alongside Jos and Lucie Hessel. Using loose brushstrokes to depict Mrs. Fontaine, the present work mimics the sound of the music through expressive, almost rhythmic swathes of paint, creating an interplay between the “delicate interweaving of color and line, the harmony and melody of painting.”i Vuillard, whose work during this time primarily focused on interior spaces, captures the sitter in the middle of a leisurely activity in the comfort of her own home. As noted by Claude Roger-Marx, “ravished by the enchantment of these scenes, where happiness seems to flourish, it is happiness he [Vuillard] attempts to portray. He is animated by manifest sympathy and even by a kind of tenderness for his subjects and the gilded peace he saw there.”ii The present work was exhibited in the Salon d’Automne held in the fall of the year it was painted, 1904. Describing Vuillard’s works debuted in this show, Roger-Marx said “we perceive continuity in the refinement of his vision and the enrichment of his technique.”iii

     

    Utagawa Hiroshige II, True View of the Harbor at Yokohama near Kanagawa, 1860,  The Philadelphia Museum of Art. Image: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Eli Kirk Price, 1950, 1950-70-1(28--30) 

    The Nabis painters, which included other notable members Pierre Bonnard and Paul Sérusier, embraced alternatives to the French Academic painting style, opting for simple yet deeply symbolic settings. Through this subversion of the French tradition, Vuillard and the Nabis were similarly drawn to Japanese woodcut prints which were popular during the late 19th century. These prints, characterized by their flat shapes, sharp outlines and spatial effects, influenced Vuillard to incorporate similar perspectives into his own work. In this painting, the background in which Madame Fontaine is seated is compressed—a highly detailed yet relatively flat scene. Despite its shortened perspective, the wall behind the sitter appears to curve inward, as if the room itself were moving. As such, the scene is consumed by the inner world of the woman and piano that inhabit it. Vuillard’s illustrations of interior modern life illustrated “more what the room felt like than how they appeared.”iv Departing further from his Nabis contemporaries, the present work represents a darker, more dramatic color palette for Vuillard than his brightly colored paintings from the years prior. In doing so, the artist upends the traditional representation of domestic scenes, adding a fresh, distinctive twist to classic subject matter.

     

    iElizabeth Wynne Easton, The Intimate Interiors of Edouard Vuillard, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1989, p. 2.

    iiClaude Roger-Max, Vuillard, His Life and Work, London, 1946, pp. 67, 89.

    iii Ibid, p. 66.

    ivElizabeth Wynne Easton, The Intimate Interiors of Edouard Vuillard, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1989, p. 76.

    • Condition Report

    • Description

      View our Conditions of Sale.

    • Provenance

      Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired directly from the artist on June 14, 1904)
      Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, Paris (acquired from the above on October 22, 1904)
      Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired on November 30, 1927)
      Raphael Gérard, Paris (acquired on December 1, 1927)
      Jos Hessel, Paris
      Georges Renand, Paris (acquired by 1930)
      Jean Walther, Paris (acquired by 1941)
      Jacques Laroche, Paris
      Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York (acquired by 1950)
      William Rand, New York (acquired from the above in 1954)
      His sale, Christie’s, New York, February 19, 1998, lot 11
      Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Paris, Grand Palais, Salon d’Automne, 2eme Exposition, October–November, 1904, no. 1293, p. 1382
      Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, E. Vuillard, May–July, 1938, no. 115, p. 20 (titled Dame en noir au piano)
      Paris, Alfred Daber, Oeuvres remarquables de Vuillard, April 25–May 14, 1947
      New York, Rosenberg Galleries, 20th Century French Paintings, November 13–December 2, 1950, no. 18, n.p.
      Cleveland Museum of Art; New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Work of Édouard Vuillard, January 27–June, 1954, p. 103 (titled Missia at the Piano)
      Paris, Durand-Ruel, E. Vuillard, 1868–1940, May 26–September 29, 1961, no. 41, n.p.

    • Literature

      André Chastel, Vuillard 1868–1940, Paris, 1946, pp. 57, 116 (illustrated, p. 57)
      Claude Roger-Marx, Vuillard et son temps, Paris, 1945, p. 109 (illustrated; titled Missia au piano; dated 1899)
      Claude Roger-Marx, Vuillard, Paris, 1948, no. 31, pp. 25, 47 (illustrated, p. 47; dated 1899)
      Curt Schweicher, Die Bildraumgestaltung das Dekorative und das Ornamentale im Weke von Édouard Vuillard, Zurich, 1949, pp. 24–25, 27, 47–49 (titled Missia au piano)
      Georges Charnesol, Vuillard, Médecines et peintures, no. 76, Arcueil, 1955, pl. 9, p. 8 (illustrated; titled Missia au piano)
      Curt Schweicher, Vuillard, Bern, 1955, pl. 23, pp. 31, 77–78 (illustrated, p. 78; titled Misia am flügel; dated 1899)
      Toulouse-Latrec, exh. cat., Hayward Gallery and Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, London and Paris, 1991–1992, fig. 182, p. 150 (illustrated; titled Intérieur)
      Antoine Salomon and Guy Cogeval, Vuillard: The Inexhaustible Glance, Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels, vol. II, Milan, 2003, no. VII-315, p. 696 (illustrated)

Property from an Important Private American Collection

169

Mme Arthur Fontaine au piano

signed and dated "E Vuillard 04" lower left
oil on board mounted on cradled panel
21 1/2 x 24 1/2 in. (54.6 x 62.2 cm)
Painted in 1904.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$120,000 - 180,000 

Place Advance Bid
Contact Specialist

Annie Dolan
NY Head of Auctions and Specialist, Head of Sale, Morning Session
212 940 1288
adolan@phillips.com

Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session

New York Auction 15 May 2024