L'encrier bleu sur la cheminée

'L'encrier bleu sur la cheminée' (The Blue Inkwell on the Mantelpiece), painted by Vuillard around 1900, focuses attention on a single small domestic object—a blue inkwell sitting on a fireplace mantelpiece. Vuillard's capacity to find sufficient pictorial interest in the most modest subject reflects the Nabi conviction that spiritual significance resided in the ordinary and that a single object, carefully observed, could sustain an entire painting. The blue inkwell's colour against the mantelpiece's other objects and surfaces provided the chromatic organisation that sufficed as subject. Norwich Castle holds the work in its English collection.

The composition's interest lies in the blue inkwell's colour against the neutral tones of the mantelpiece surface and surrounding objects. Vuillard renders the small scale of the subject with precise, abbreviated brushwork, relying on the inkwell's vivid colour to anchor the composition.