Nurse with a Child in a Sailor Suit

Painted in 1895 on cardboard and held at The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., this work depicts a nursemaid and a young child in sailor suit—a vignette of bourgeois childhood in public space that was a recurring subject in 1890s avant-garde Parisian painting. From Cassatt's scenes of maternal care to Seurat's figures in the park, the spectacle of properly dressed children being attended by professional nurses was a recognized element of the modern urban spectacle. Vuillard treats the subject with his characteristic decorative economy, integrating the two figures into a compressed ambient setting.

On cardboard, the two figures are rendered in closely valued dark and light passages—the nurse's dark dress against the child's lighter sailor suit—creating a simple but effective compositional contrast. The surrounding ambient space is suggested with minimal marks, focusing attention on the paired figures and their relationship.