拍品專文
La Cueillette was bought by Bernheim-Jeune from the 17th Salon des Indépendants where Vuillard exhibited nine other pictures alongside those of his celebrated Nabis contemporaries, Denis, Bonnard and Vallotton. The Salon lasted a month, closing on 21 May, the day when Bernheim-Jeune is recorded to have paid 500Frs. for the painting. He also bought a smaller, related work entitled Dans les Framboisiers from the same exhibition. The previous year Bernheim-Jeune had staged the last collective exhibition of the Nabis painters and had persuaded Vuillard that he should become his dealer.
La Cueillette clearly shows Bernheim-Jeune's influence on Vuillard's work. Introducing him to a new circle of wealthy collectors in the late 1890s, Bernheim-Jeune encouraged him to enlarge his canvases and paint his 'intime' studies on a more lavish scale.
Vuillard's first paintings on the grand scale lost none of their intensity: indeed, arguably Vuillard's most impressive paintings date from this period. Canvases such as The Roussel Family at Table and Le Salon aux trois Lampes, rue St. Florentin (sold in these Rooms, 30 November 1992, lot 20, 1,540,000) bear witness to this.
As he branched out in scale, so inevitably Vuillard branched out in subject: "The expansion of Vuillard's social contacts, which is so closely related to his larger pictures, his more fashionable interiors, is responsible too for his now leaving Paris during the summers and spending them with his new friends in Normandy and Brittany. The result is a vacation-like enjoyment of landscape and an attempt to record his impressions of the country and the sea". (A. C. Ritchie, Edouard Vuillard, New York, 1954, p. 26.) Encouraged by Bonnard, Vallotton and Roussel, Vuillard turned to landscape.
La Cueillette was painted at L'Etang-la-Ville in the village where his brother-in-law, and fellow Nabi, Ker Xavier Roussel first rented a house in 1899. It belongs to a small group of large-scale 'fruit-picking' oils which Vuillard painted there in the summer of 1899 or 1900. Bearing in mind that Vuillard and Roussel travelled to Italy together in the spring of 1899, it seems likely that Vuillard painted La Cueillette in the summer of the same year.
The parallels between this landscape and Vuillard's mature interiors of the same period are fascinating: the rich 'éclatant' colours of Parisian apartments are replaced by an equally rich but subtler range of colours from nature, the swirling patterns of textiles and furniture are replaced by the more delicate patterns of trees and foliage, and the angles of rooms and objects are replaced by the symmetry of paths and planted flower beds. Even the unusual aerial perspective, the spare paint application and the strong light effects have their parallels in his richest interiors. However, by toning down his palette, Vuillard succeeds in creating a plein air painting more reminiscent of an Impressionist than an intimiste.
To be included in the forthcoming Edouard Vuillard catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by Antoine Salomon and Annette Leduc Beaulieu from the records and under the responsibility of Antoine Salomon.
La Cueillette clearly shows Bernheim-Jeune's influence on Vuillard's work. Introducing him to a new circle of wealthy collectors in the late 1890s, Bernheim-Jeune encouraged him to enlarge his canvases and paint his 'intime' studies on a more lavish scale.
Vuillard's first paintings on the grand scale lost none of their intensity: indeed, arguably Vuillard's most impressive paintings date from this period. Canvases such as The Roussel Family at Table and Le Salon aux trois Lampes, rue St. Florentin (sold in these Rooms, 30 November 1992, lot 20, 1,540,000) bear witness to this.
As he branched out in scale, so inevitably Vuillard branched out in subject: "The expansion of Vuillard's social contacts, which is so closely related to his larger pictures, his more fashionable interiors, is responsible too for his now leaving Paris during the summers and spending them with his new friends in Normandy and Brittany. The result is a vacation-like enjoyment of landscape and an attempt to record his impressions of the country and the sea". (A. C. Ritchie, Edouard Vuillard, New York, 1954, p. 26.) Encouraged by Bonnard, Vallotton and Roussel, Vuillard turned to landscape.
La Cueillette was painted at L'Etang-la-Ville in the village where his brother-in-law, and fellow Nabi, Ker Xavier Roussel first rented a house in 1899. It belongs to a small group of large-scale 'fruit-picking' oils which Vuillard painted there in the summer of 1899 or 1900. Bearing in mind that Vuillard and Roussel travelled to Italy together in the spring of 1899, it seems likely that Vuillard painted La Cueillette in the summer of the same year.
The parallels between this landscape and Vuillard's mature interiors of the same period are fascinating: the rich 'éclatant' colours of Parisian apartments are replaced by an equally rich but subtler range of colours from nature, the swirling patterns of textiles and furniture are replaced by the more delicate patterns of trees and foliage, and the angles of rooms and objects are replaced by the symmetry of paths and planted flower beds. Even the unusual aerial perspective, the spare paint application and the strong light effects have their parallels in his richest interiors. However, by toning down his palette, Vuillard succeeds in creating a plein air painting more reminiscent of an Impressionist than an intimiste.
To be included in the forthcoming Edouard Vuillard catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by Antoine Salomon and Annette Leduc Beaulieu from the records and under the responsibility of Antoine Salomon.