Vuillard is best known for his small, poetic, and dimly lit intimiste interiors of the 1890s. The setting of these works were the modest Parisian apartments that the artist shared with his sisters and his mother, and from which the latter operated her corset-making business. The two women depicted here are in mourning for the family's matriarch, grand-mère Michaud. It has been suggested that the young man is Julien Mangnin, a friend of Vuillard's from their school days, who dropped in to cheer up the women.
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Artwork Details
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Title:At Table
Artist:Edouard Vuillard (French, Cuiseaux 1868–1940 La Baule)
Date:1893
Medium:Oil on cardboard
Dimensions:12 × 10 1/2 in. (30.5 × 26.7 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Bequest of Scofield Thayer, 1982
Accession Number:1984.433.25
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower left): ev 93
the artist (to Marx); Roger Marx, Paris (until d. 1913; his estate sale, Galerie Manzi, Joyant, Paris, May 11–12, 1914, no. 89, as "Repas de famille," sold for Fr 2,900, to Kahn); Alphonse Kann, Paris (possibly from 1914); [Galerie Druet, Paris, until 1923; stock no. 10193; sold on July 12, 1923 to Thayer]; Scofield Thayer, New York (1923–d. 1982; on extended loan to the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Mass., as part of the Dial Collection, 1931-82; his bequest to MMA)
New York. Montross Gallery. "Original Paintings, Drawings, and Engravings Being Exhibited with the Dial Folio 'Living Art'," January 26–February 14, 1924, no catalogue (typed checklist no. 42).
Worcester Art Museum. "Exhibition of the Dial Collection of Paintings, Engravings, and Drawings by Contemporary Artists," March 5–30, 1924, no. 36.
Northampton, Mass. Hillyer Art Gallery, Smith College. "The Dial Collection," May 1924, no catalogue.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Prints by Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard," December 15, 1938–January 15, 1939, no. 29 (dated 1898, lent by the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts).
Washington. Phillips Memorial Gallery. "Paintings by Édouard Vuillard," January 22–February 22, 1939, no. 10 (dated 1898, lent by the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts).
Boston. Institute of Modern Art. "'La Vie Française': An Exhibition of Paintings Chiefly by Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard," October 6–November 11, 1944, no. 22 (lent anonymously, courtesy of The Worcester Art Museum).
Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts. "Modern French Masters," November 28–December 31, 1952, no. 36 (as "At the Table," 1898, lent anonymously through the Worcester Art Museum).
Akron Art Institute. "Modern French Masters," January 13–February 16, 1953, no. 36.
Worcester Art Museum. "Modern French Masters," March 5–April 12, 1953, no. 36.
Worcester Art Museum. "The Dial and the Dial Collection," April 30–September 8, 1959, no. 84.
Worcester Art Museum. "Selections from the Dial Collection," November 13–30, 1965, unnum. checklist.
Worcester Art Museum. "The Dial Revisited," June 29–August 22, 1971, no catalogue.
Worcester Art Museum. "'The Dial': Arts and Letters in the 1920s," March 7–May 10, 1981, no. 146 (dated 1898).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Small Interiors," February 17–July 21, 1996, no catalogue.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920," February 4–May 6, 2007, no. 118.
Berlin. Neue Nationalgalerie. "Französische Meisterwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts aus dem Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," June 1–October 7, 2007, unnumbered cat. (p. 240).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "XS," December 6, 2011–April 15, 2012, no catalogue.
"Living Art." New York Telegraph (February 3, 1924).
Dial 79 (September 1925), ill. opp. p. 179 (color).
Louisa Dresser inThe Dial and the Dial Collection. Exh. cat., Worcester Art Museum. Worcester, Mass., 1959, p. 88, no. 84, ill., dates it 1898; identifies the setting as the family dinner table at the rue Truffaut.
Nicholas Joost. Scofield Thayer and The Dial: An Illustrated History. Carbondale, Ill., 1964, ill. between pp. 268 and 269.
Nicholas Joost. "The Dial Collection: Tastes and Trends of the 'Twenties." Apollo 94 (December 1971), p. 495.
Patricia Ciaffa. "The Portraits of Edouard Vuillard." PhD diss., Columbia University, New York, 1985, pp. 135–36, fig. 44, calls it "The Visitor"; identifies the sitters as Vuillard's mother, sister Marie, and an unknown visitor; suggests that the empty chair "was intended as a subtle, poignant reminder of the absence of the recently deceased Grandmother Michaud"; discusses the influence of Degas in the composition and "fractured communication" between the figures.
Antoine Salomon, and Guy Cogeval, with the collaboration of Mathias Chivot. Vuillard, the Inexhaustible Glance: Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels. Milan, 2003, vol. 1, pp. 57, 92, 275, no. IV-87, ill. (color), call it "Family Meal"; identify the male figure as probably Julien Magnin, a close friend of Vuillard's, who has "come to raise the spirits of the Vuillard ladies in mourning for 'grand-mère' Michaud".
Sabine Rewald inThe Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. New York, 2007, pp. 160, 261, no. 118, ill. (color and bw), identifies the setting as the living room at 346 rue St.-Honoré, the apartment where Vuillard lived with his mother and sister; tentatively identifies the woman at right as his sister Marie.
Sabine Rewald inMasterpieces of European Painting, 1800–1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, pp. 190, 311, no. 175, ill. (color and bw).
Edouard Vuillard (French, Cuiseaux 1868–1940 La Baule)
1893
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