Lucien Rosengart at his work table

Painted in 1930, this late work depicting the automobile industrialist Lucien Rosengart at his desk represents Vuillard's mature phase as a portraitist of the French professional and business class. By the late 1920s and 1930s, Vuillard was one of the most sought-after portraitists in Paris, his sitters including politicians, industrialists, intellectuals, and collectors. Rosengart, who manufactured small affordable cars, belonged to the new industrial bourgeoisie. The Musée d'Orsay work shows Vuillard's late portrait style: richer in tonal detail than his early work, more naturalistic in rendering, but retaining the characteristic embedding of the subject within their working environment.

The sitter at a desk surrounded by papers and objects is bathed in warm interior light. The mature palette is more complex and modulated than the early Nabi works, with richer shadows and a looser, more confident brushwork. The environment remains as present as the figure.