Vuillard's Room at the Château des Clayes

From 1932, this work on paper depicts Vuillard's own room at the Château des Clayes, the country estate of his long-time patrons Lucy and Jos Hessel, where he was a frequent guest in later life. The self-reflective subject—the artist's own room, his personal domain—invites comparison with the earlier domestic scenes of his mother's apartment, but the style is more open and the mood more contemplative. At the Art Institute of Chicago, it testifies to Vuillard's continued engagement with the intimate interior as his primary artistic territory even in his late 60s.

Executed on paper in a technique combining distemper and gouache-like applications, the work renders the room's furnishings in warm, diffused light. Vuillard's late handling is less pattern-dense than his 1890s work, with greater spatial recession and a more relaxed, almost nostalgic integration of personal objects within a lived space.