Portrait of Elvira Popesco

Portrait of Elvira Popesco of 1937 is among Vuillard's last significant commissioned portraits — the Romanian-born actress and comedienne who had become one of the most celebrated performers in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, her comedy and timing making her a figure of considerable public affection. By 1937 Vuillard was in his late sixties and his portrait work had settled into a distinguished late style — still characterized by his integration of sitter and environment, his attention to the specific domestic world of his subjects' lives, but executed with the assured technique of a painter who had spent fifty years developing his method. Popesco's theatrical persona — vivacious, comedic, associated with light entertainment — would have presented a different tonal challenge than his typically more reserved portrait subjects, and his treatment would have sought the private person behind the public performance in the characteristic intimist manner.

The late portrait shows Vuillard's mature technique in its most assured form — the complex interior environment and the sitter's theatrical personality both registered with the calm observational intelligence that characterizes all his best portraiture. His color sense remains vivid and his surface handling active, showing none of the dulling that affects some artists in extreme old age.