La Commode rouge

La Commode rouge depicts a red chest of drawers in a domestic interior, and exemplifies Vuillard's ability to make furniture and decorative objects into starring subjects equal in pictorial weight to any human figure. The commode, likely in the apartment of his lifelong companion Lucy Hessel or in his own home, becomes through Vuillard's handling an almost animate presence — its strong colour and imposing mass dominating the confined room around it. Throughout his career Vuillard insisted on the equal pictorial dignity of all elements within his domestic scenes, a democratic vision of objects and persons sharing the same visual world.

The red commode provides a strong chromatic anchor against the surrounding neutral tones of wall and floor. Vuillard constructs its surface with relatively flat, even brushwork that preserves the sense of an obdurate physical object while integrating it into the overall surface pattern of the composition.