Portrait of Madame de la Laurencie and children

Maurice Denis painted 'Portrait of Madame de la Laurencie and Children' in 1904, combining the intimate subject of mother and children with the decorative flatness that defined his Nabi aesthetic. Denis was one of the founders of the Nabis, the Post-Impressionist group that followed Gauguin's advice to treat the picture plane as a flat surface covered in colours arranged in a certain order. A devout Catholic and a theorist of sacred art as much as a painter, Denis repeatedly found in the Madonna-and-child tradition a template for modern domestic portraiture. This canvas at the Nantes Museum of Arts shows his characteristic fusion of personal portraiture and archetypical maternal imagery.

Denis uses simplified, flattened forms and reduced modelling consistent with Nabi principles, organising the composition through decorative line and colour area rather than illusionistic depth. The palette is warm and harmonious, with figures integrated into a shallow pictorial space. Contours are clear and deliberate, recalling both medieval painting and Japanese printmaking.