"L' Atre", from"Paysages et Interieurs"

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(1899)

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"L'Atre, from Paysages et Interieurs", 1899, lithograph in colors, on Chine volant, by the artist Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940), an edition of 100, 34 x 27.5 cm., 13 5/16" x 10 3/4", a very good impression with good color [Roger-Marx 39]

Born in Cuiseaux, in eastern France, Vuillard moved with his family to Paris in 1877 where he later entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and then studied at the Academie Julian where he met his lifelong friend Pierre Bonnard.  Edouard Vuillard and his friend Pierre Bonnard belonged to a group of artists who called themselves Nabis; a word for prophet.  The Nabis rejected the naturalism and spontaneity Impressionism in favor of two-dimensional designs that were ideally suited for color lithography. Vuillard's small intimate images have become his best known works. His everyday scenes of life and domestic interiors demonstrate his own unique Impressionist technique, while reminding us of Dutch 17th century interior genre painting.

It was under Clot's direction that Vuillard's "Paysages et Interieurs" were produced. Printed in 100 impressions (with only a small number signed and numbered), Landscapes and Interiors" (Roger-Marx cat. 31-46) was exhibited for the first time by Vollard in February, 1899.  It is in these twelve lithographs that one can find Vuillard's greatest technical and sentimental experience.  The spontaneity of the placement, the generality of the chosen themes, the discreet format, the muted colors (whose matte quality recalls tempera or a la colle painting), the role played by certain whites, reserved the way they are in a watercolor, all participate in the enchantment of "Paysages et Interieurs".

Never before, even in Holland, had art seen decor impregnated to his point with a human presence. Extinct, broken, even dead color - old brick or tanned leather pinks, steel, slate or asphalt blues, greenish or ashen whites, eggplant violets, seaweed greens, lichen grays - are opposed to the freshness of tonic accents vigorously placed here and there - golds, reds, lemons, pinks or bright violets, maroons, blacks.  The wear and tear and the banality of these interiors are transfigured.  In "L'Atre" (The Hearth), a child's yellow wooden high chair dominates the kitchen utensils scattered in front of the fireplace while in an isolated large black area, there are the dormant remains of a fire (As described in the Roger-Marx catalogue raisonne).

This Edouard Vuillard is in a 26 1/4" x  29" swan shaped frame with a yellow-green haze created with multiple washes and patinas over gold leaf.   The wood fillet is olive crackle over a light yellow-orange underpaint with a curved scoop that echoes the frame.  The moss suede outer and tawny inner  mats are acid and lignin free and are protected with Acrylite-AR OP3 (UV) by CYRO ........ $8,000.00 ( provenance upon request)