Madame Vuillard Standing, Reading by a Window

Painted in 1893 in oil and held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this work depicts Madame Vuillard—the artist's mother—in the act of reading by a window while standing, an unusual pose that gives the figure a sense of momentary caught action rather than formal arrangement. The window provides the composition's light source, and the standing figure of the mother reading is transformed by Vuillard's Nabi approach into part of the room's decorative whole. Throughout the 1890s, his mother was his most constant and intimate model, observed in all the routines of domestic life.

The backlit figure standing at the window creates a darkened silhouette against the lighter exterior glow—a compositional device Vuillard uses to flatten the figure and integrate it with the window frame and curtain. The oil paint is applied in dry, closely observed strokes that build the domestic space's warm-and-cool interplay of light.