Maquette pour un portrait de K.X. Roussel

Painted in 1930 in oil and held at the Musée d'Art Moderne, this preparatory maquette for a portrait of K.X. Roussel—painter, Nabi, and Vuillard's brother-in-law through his marriage to Vuillard's sister Marie—documents the long intimacy of the two artists' relationship. Roussel was one of Vuillard's oldest friends and professional peers, and this portrait sketch reflects the characteristic ease of Vuillard's late work with deeply familiar subjects. The maquette form—a small-scale compositional study—was part of his regular working method for major commissions.

As a maquette, the work prioritizes compositional and coloristic decisions over finished detail. Roussel's figure is established in broad, confident strokes that map the essential relationship of figure to setting, with the surrounding interior rendered in shorthand that will be elaborated in the final portrait.