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Lot Essay
Antoine Salomon has confirmed the authenticity of this painting, which will be included in the forthcoming Vuillard catalogue raisonné being prepared by Antoine Salomon and to be published by the Wildenstein Institute, Paris.
A photo-certificate from Antoine Salomon dated Paris, 21 March 2000 accompanies this painting, which he titles La Chanteuse and dates circa 1893.
In 1891-1892, Vuillard produced a series of very small pictures of women painted in oil on cardboard. What characterizes these works is the total absence of modeling; interior detail and faces are indicated only summarily, as seen in the present work.
The subject of this painting is believed to be Marthe Mellot, the Parisian stage actress, who often posed for Vuillard. She was the wife of Alfred Natanson, who with his brothers Thadée and Aléxandre ran the bi-monthly periodical la Revue Blanche, dedicated to progressive ideas in many fields, ranging from art and literature to popular science and politics. Mellot was also a colleague of the actor Aurélien Lugné-Poe, one of the Vuillard's closest friends. Lugné-Poe was responsible for the artist's participation in the theater as a designer of sets, programs, and costumes for the Théâtre Libre, Paul Fort's Théâtre d'Art, and, beginning in 1893, Lugné-Poe's own Théâtre de l'Oeuvre, which put on plays by Ibsen, Strindberg and Maeterlinck. When Vuillard was asked to paint decorations for the newly built Comédie des Champs-Elysées in 1912, he included two small panels, one depicting Mellot, the other Lugné-Poe, showing them applying make-up in their dressing rooms.
A photo-certificate from Antoine Salomon dated Paris, 21 March 2000 accompanies this painting, which he titles La Chanteuse and dates circa 1893.
In 1891-1892, Vuillard produced a series of very small pictures of women painted in oil on cardboard. What characterizes these works is the total absence of modeling; interior detail and faces are indicated only summarily, as seen in the present work.
The subject of this painting is believed to be Marthe Mellot, the Parisian stage actress, who often posed for Vuillard. She was the wife of Alfred Natanson, who with his brothers Thadée and Aléxandre ran the bi-monthly periodical la Revue Blanche, dedicated to progressive ideas in many fields, ranging from art and literature to popular science and politics. Mellot was also a colleague of the actor Aurélien Lugné-Poe, one of the Vuillard's closest friends. Lugné-Poe was responsible for the artist's participation in the theater as a designer of sets, programs, and costumes for the Théâtre Libre, Paul Fort's Théâtre d'Art, and, beginning in 1893, Lugné-Poe's own Théâtre de l'Oeuvre, which put on plays by Ibsen, Strindberg and Maeterlinck. When Vuillard was asked to paint decorations for the newly built Comédie des Champs-Elysées in 1912, he included two small panels, one depicting Mellot, the other Lugné-Poe, showing them applying make-up in their dressing rooms.