Jeanne Lanvin

Painted in 1935 and now at the Musée d'Orsay, this late portrait of Jeanne Lanvin — the celebrated couturière and one of the founders of modern French fashion — was Vuillard's last major commissioned portrait before his death in 1940. Lanvin had been a close associate for decades; he had also painted her daughter Marie-Blanche de Polignac. By 1935 Vuillard was in his late sixties and his portraiture had evolved into a broadly academic mode, though still distinguished by his integration of sitter with decorative environment and his sensitivity to social milieu. The Orsay portrait is a definitive late document.

The late portrait situates Lanvin within a richly appointed interior setting where fabric, costume, and furnishing create a unified decorative field — appropriate for a subject who had dedicated her life to the aesthetics of dress and interior design. The figure is rendered with the assured, somewhat academic technique of Vuillard's late style.