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Lot Essay
This opulent painting, with its subtle characterizations and innumerable, carefully-observed details, orchestrated with iridescent tonal richness, marks the fully-fledged emergence of the naturalistic style and haute-bourgeois subjects that characterize the work of Vuillard's maturity. John Russell has noted that "in an unsystematic way he assembled as complete a record as any have of the way well-to-do people looked and behaved in the France of the Third Republic; already in 1904 Marcel Proust spoke of 'his admirable talent, which often kindled my memory'" (in Edouard Vuillard, exh. cat. The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1971, p. 69).
Vuillard has depicted in this scene his primary social circle in the years just before the First World War. This is the second, more detailed version of a soirée he executed slightly earlier (Salomon and Cogeval, no. IX-175). Lucy Hessel, the wife of Jos Hessel, Vuillard's dealer at Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, is seated at center, her back to the viewer, in a black and white dress. Her husband Jos was a persistent philanderer; she was drawn to Vuillard's quietly compassionate nature, and they became lovers. Marcelle Aron, the hostess to this gathering and Lucy's cousin, is seen at left. During this time she was having an affair with the playwright Tristan Bernard, the bearded gentleman who is seated next to her here; they later married. Across from them, with his arms outstretched and head tilted back as he exhales from his cigarette, is the playwright Romain Coolus. A mysterious fifth figure is seated at lower right, reading a newspaper--we see only his right hand and leg. He is presumably the artist himself, characteristically modest and unobtrusive, listening, but not participating in the conversation.
Vuillard reinforced this feeling of artistic detachment, in which he observed people and their lives from a discreet distance, through his emphatic use of receding space. This scene betokens Vuillard's love of the theater, for in this simple gathering of friends he might visualize a drawing room drama. The room has in effect become a stage set, and the conversation, no doubt witty and engaging with two playwrights present, the play script. Hidden beneath the surface of proper upper class appearances lay a web of real but unspoken feelings and romantic attachments.
Alfred Lindon (born Lindenbaum) was an English jewelry dealer and art collector who lived in Paris during the years prior to the Second World War. He placed his holdings, ranging from Old Master to Impressionist paintings, in storage before leaving Paris during the Occcupation. German authorities seized the collection and dispersed it. Lindon died in 1948, and his son Jacques, an art dealer, continued efforts to reclaim the pictures, with only partial success. By the mid-1950s Le Salon de Madame Aron had made its way from Germany, back to Paris, and then to Canada. It was recently restituted to the Lindon heirs, who have offered it for sale in this catalogue.
Vuillard has depicted in this scene his primary social circle in the years just before the First World War. This is the second, more detailed version of a soirée he executed slightly earlier (Salomon and Cogeval, no. IX-175). Lucy Hessel, the wife of Jos Hessel, Vuillard's dealer at Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, is seated at center, her back to the viewer, in a black and white dress. Her husband Jos was a persistent philanderer; she was drawn to Vuillard's quietly compassionate nature, and they became lovers. Marcelle Aron, the hostess to this gathering and Lucy's cousin, is seen at left. During this time she was having an affair with the playwright Tristan Bernard, the bearded gentleman who is seated next to her here; they later married. Across from them, with his arms outstretched and head tilted back as he exhales from his cigarette, is the playwright Romain Coolus. A mysterious fifth figure is seated at lower right, reading a newspaper--we see only his right hand and leg. He is presumably the artist himself, characteristically modest and unobtrusive, listening, but not participating in the conversation.
Vuillard reinforced this feeling of artistic detachment, in which he observed people and their lives from a discreet distance, through his emphatic use of receding space. This scene betokens Vuillard's love of the theater, for in this simple gathering of friends he might visualize a drawing room drama. The room has in effect become a stage set, and the conversation, no doubt witty and engaging with two playwrights present, the play script. Hidden beneath the surface of proper upper class appearances lay a web of real but unspoken feelings and romantic attachments.
Alfred Lindon (born Lindenbaum) was an English jewelry dealer and art collector who lived in Paris during the years prior to the Second World War. He placed his holdings, ranging from Old Master to Impressionist paintings, in storage before leaving Paris during the Occcupation. German authorities seized the collection and dispersed it. Lindon died in 1948, and his son Jacques, an art dealer, continued efforts to reclaim the pictures, with only partial success. By the mid-1950s Le Salon de Madame Aron had made its way from Germany, back to Paris, and then to Canada. It was recently restituted to the Lindon heirs, who have offered it for sale in this catalogue.