Place Vintimille

1911

Edouard Vuillard

Painter, French, 1868 - 1940

A screen made up of five tall, rectangular panels, set side by side and each surrounded by a gold frame, is painted as a single scene showing a tree-lined sidewalk curving around a park in a city. The scene is loosely painted with short, rounded brushstrokes. The top two-thirds to three-quarters of most of the panels are filled with the lime and olive-green leaves of the trees that line the sidewalk and park. In the leftmost panel, the sidewalk and road lead back to a row of caramel-brown building façades. The sidewalk is pale taupe, and the street is painted with dashes of the same taupe against terracotta brown, suggesting cobblestones. Spindly trees are spaced in a row along the sidewalk in round holes covered with smoke-gray metal grates. A black fence, painted with thin, sometimes broken black lines encloses the park beyond, which has a path around plantings and the vivid green lawn. Touches of pink on a sage-green tree to our left in the park suggest flowers. A gray statue on a high plinth is partially lost in the break between the two rightmost panels. Men, women, and children, painted with a few strokes of black, gray, or marine or periwinkle blue, walk along the sidewalk and the garden path, or sit at the base of the fence or on benches spaced along the sidewalk. The women seem to wear long dresses and the men dark clothing and hats. Two carriages are pulled up on the street near a lamp post alongside the sidewalk near the lower left. In the leftmost panel, horse-drawn carriages move along the road leading back to the buildings, and more people seem to be gathered on the sidewalk near the left edge of the panel in the distance. The artist signed the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “E. Vuillard.” The panels of the screen have been set up so the panels rest on a platform or on the floor in a shallow zig-zag pattern, in a room with an off white wall and bisque-brown molding along the floor.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

On this decorative screen, Edouard Vuillard painted the Place Vintimille (now the Place Adolphe-Max), as seen from his fifth-floor apartment. Vuillard was an avid photographer, and he took snapshots from his window to use as reference for these panels.

The sweeping curve of the sidewalk, which unifies the five panels, is dotted with small scenes of everyday life. Vuillard captures the bustling activity of a bright spring day in the city. While this subject is typically Parisian, the work reflects Vuillard’s fascination with Japanese art. Its seemingly casual arrangement of forms and cropped composition recalls Japanese woodblock prints.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 80


Artwork overview

  • Medium

    five-panel screen, distemper on paper laid down on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Enid A. Haupt

  • Dimensions

    overall (each of five panels): 230 x 60 cm (90 9/16 x 23 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1998.47.1-5


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Commissioned 1911 by Marguerite Chapin [later Princess of Bassiano, born c. 1885], until at least 1924.[1] Albert Sancholle Henraux [1891-1953], Paris, possibly by 1938 and until at least 1945.[2] Mrs. Enid Annenberg Haupt [1906-2005], New York, by 1973;[3] gift 1998 to NGA.
[1] Lent by the Princess to 1924 exhibition in Paris.
[2] Lent to 1938 exhibition in Paris by "M. A.S.H." Cited in Claude Roger Marx, Vuillard et son temps, Paris, 1945, as in Henraux collection.
[3] See memo regarding Haupt collection dated 14 May 1973, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1912

  • Edouard Vuillard, Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, 1912, no. 29.

1924

  • Premier Exposition de Collectionneurs, au profit de la Société des Amis du Luxembourg, L'Hôtel de la Curiosité et des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1924, no. 44.

1938

  • Exposition E. Vuillard, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 1938, no. 135.

2000

  • Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000-2001, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2001

  • Beyond the Easel: Decorative Painting by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, and Roussel, 1890-1930, Art Institute of Chicago; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2001, no. 80, repro.

2003

  • Edouard Vuillard, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2003-2004, no. 271, repro., as Five-Panel Screen for Miss Marguerite Chapin: Place Vintimille.

2011

  • Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., Indianapolis Museum, 2011-2012, not in catalogue (shown only in Washington).

Bibliography

1988

  • Thomson, Belinda. Vuillard. Oxford, 1988: 114, pl. 71.

1993

  • Groom, Gloria. Edouard Vuillard: Painter-Decorator. Patrons and Projects, 1892-1912. New Haven and London, 1993: 172-177, 179, 196-197, pl. 282.

2003

  • Salomon, Antoine, and Guy Cogeval. Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance: Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels. 3 vols. Milan and Paris, 2003: 2:no. IX-165, repro.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 400-401, no. 331, color repro.

Inscriptions

lower right, far right panel: E. Vuillard

Wikidata ID

Q20191593


You may be interested in

Loading Results