Madame Vuillard cousant, rue Truffaut

Painted in 1900 on the rue Truffaut in Paris's 17th arrondissement, this depiction of Madame Vuillard sewing belongs to the most sustained subject in Vuillard's entire career. His mother Marie, who ran a dressmaking business from the apartment they shared for most of his adult life, provided him with a subject of inexhaustible richness: a woman engaged in skilled labor within a domestic space saturated with fabric, pattern, and color. His relationship with his mother was famously intimate — he remained living with her until her death in 1928 — and his paintings of her sewing or reading or simply present in their shared apartment constitute a biographical document of unusual depth. The Lausanne museum's holding of this canvas reflects the Swiss collecting engagement with French intimism that developed in the early twentieth century, when Bonnard, Vuillard, and the other Post-Nabi painters were acquiring an international reputation outside France. The year 1900 marked the transition in his style from the extreme flatness of his Nabi period toward the slightly more atmospheric approach of his mature years.

Vuillard flattens the figure of Madame Vuillard against the surrounding wallpaper and textile patterns so that flesh and fabric share the same pictorial weight. His oil application is dry and mat, avoiding highlights, building the surface through closely valued tones of russet, brown, and cream that unify figure and environment.