At the Revue Blanche (Portrait of Félix Fénéon)

Dated to 1901 and executed on paperboard, this portrait locates Félix Fénéon — art critic, anarchist sympathiser, and central figure of the Parisian avant-garde — within the offices of the Revue Blanche, the literary and artistic journal that published Vuillard, Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others. Fénéon was one of the most influential critical voices of the 1890s, championing Seurat and Post-Impressionism. Vuillard was closely associated with the Revue Blanche circle through the Natanson brothers and painted several works documenting its figures. The informal office setting, cluttered with papers, makes this an environmental portrait in the intimiste tradition.

The paperboard support gives the paint a dry, absorbent quality. The figure of Fénéon is caught at desk, surrounded by stacked papers in a near-monochromatic grey-green palette relieved by warm ochre accents. The composition emphasises the subject's intellectual environment.