Madame Hessel dans sa chambre au Château des Clayes

Madame Hessel dans sa chambre au Château des Clayes depicts Lucy Hessel in the bedroom of the country house the Hessels rented from 1912 at Clayes-sous-Bois, southwest of Paris. The Château des Clayes became Vuillard's primary summer retreat for nearly three decades, and he painted its rooms, garden, and inhabitants exhaustively. Lucy in her bedroom — the most private room of the house — represents the ultimate extension of his intimiste programme: total access to a woman's private domestic world, observed over years of sustained cohabitation.

The bedroom setting provides Vuillard with the densely furnished, patterned space of his richest domestic canvases. The bed, dresser, and personal objects accumulate around the figure of Lucy. The palette is warm and enclosed, the light domestic and private. All surfaces are treated with Vuillard's characteristic equalising brushwork.