Women Sewing

Women Sewing of 1912 belongs to the extended series of sewing subjects Vuillard maintained throughout his career — the act of needlework as one of the most persistent and varied subjects in his domestic program from the earliest Nabi canvases through his late career. By 1912 his sewing subjects had evolved considerably from the formally radical early versions: the tight, patterned compression of the 1890s canvases had given way to a somewhat more spatially coherent treatment, though his fundamental approach of treating the working figure and the domestic environment with equal visual attention remained constant. Multiple women sewing together — a social working gathering rather than solitary labor — created different compositional possibilities than his single-figure studies, the relationships between the working figures and their shared domestic environment requiring orchestration across a more complex social and spatial situation than the intimate single-figure scenes.

The intimate scale of the NGA canvas concentrates attention on the specific relationship between the sewing woman and her immediate environment — the fabric she works on, the light from the window or lamp, the objects on the table beside her. Vuillard treats these elements with close, varied observation that refuses to prioritize any single aspect of the scene.