Past Exhibition

French Paintings from the Molyneux Collection

A woman pushes aside a deep golden yellow curtain that fills three-quarters of this nearly square painting. The curtain runs on a rod parallel and close to the top of the canvas, extends off the right edge, and falls behind a bed covered in the same color. The bed is cropped by the bottom and left edges of the painting, and a brown, arched wood footboard almost reaches the right side. The woman stands on the far side of the bed, facing away from us as she pulls at the curtain with her right hand. She wears a navy-blue dress and a brown braid falls down her back. She reveals an area covered in a pink, green, and white floral pattern that seems to match the size of the curtain, at least along the left edge where it is exposed. A round mirror hangs on the floral-patterned area above a red piece of furniture, perhaps a small table or stool. The wall around the patterned area and curtain is painted bone white. A line incised in the paint running from the top left corner of the floral area to the top edge of the canvas suggests a crack in the wall. The paint is loosely applied so brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the floral pattern. The artist’s signature is painted in red in the lower left corner: "E. Vuillard."
Edouard Vuillard, The Yellow Curtain, c. 1893, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.95

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    Ground Floor, Central Gallery
A woman pushes aside a deep golden yellow curtain that fills three-quarters of this nearly square painting. The curtain runs on a rod parallel and close to the top of the canvas, extends off the right edge, and falls behind a bed covered in the same color. The bed is cropped by the bottom and left edges of the painting, and a brown, arched wood footboard almost reaches the right side. The woman stands on the far side of the bed, facing away from us as she pulls at the curtain with her right hand. She wears a navy-blue dress and a brown braid falls down her back. She reveals an area covered in a pink, green, and white floral pattern that seems to match the size of the curtain, at least along the left edge where it is exposed. A round mirror hangs on the floral-patterned area above a red piece of furniture, perhaps a small table or stool. The wall around the patterned area and curtain is painted bone white. A line incised in the paint running from the top left corner of the floral area to the top edge of the canvas suggests a crack in the wall. The paint is loosely applied so brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the floral pattern. The artist’s signature is painted in red in the lower left corner: "E. Vuillard."
Edouard Vuillard, The Yellow Curtain, c. 1893, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.95

Overview: 73 small-scale pictures were lent by Captain Edward Molyneux, the noted dress designer of London and Paris, who had collected them since 1936 to decorate his Paris apartment. Included were 17 works by Auguste Renoir, 10 by Eugène Boudin, 7 by Edouard Vuillard, and works by Pierre Bonnard, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Georges Rouault, Henri Matisse, and other 19th- and 20th-century artists. Captain Molyneux came to Washington to arrange the installation of the pictures but had to return to France before the opening. National Gallery director John Walker later urged Ailsa Mellon Bruce to purchase this highly personal private collection en bloc for the National Gallery, and her name has been attached to it ever since.

Catalog: French Paintings from the Molyneux Collection. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1952.

Other Venues:

  • Museum of Modern Art, New York

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