Les meules au jardin des Étincelles à Criqueboeuf

Painted on cardboard and held at the Wallraf–Richartz Museum in Cologne, this landscape depicting haystacks in the garden at Criqueboeuf in Normandy engages—perhaps inadvertently, given the date attributed—with one of the great subjects of Post-Impressionist painting. Monet's famous Haystacks series of 1890-91 transformed this agricultural motif into a study of changing light, and Vuillard's approach to similar material at a Normandy property reflects the broader Post-Impressionist interest in everyday rural subjects as vehicles for formal investigation.

On cardboard, Vuillard builds the haystack forms through compact, rounded brushwork that gives them a solid, almost sculptural presence in the garden setting. The surrounding vegetation is treated with looser, more dispersed marks, establishing a contrast between the dense mass of the haystacks and the open, dappled field around them.