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Lot Essay
Au piano is a charming example of the intimate and enigmatic interiors that Vuillard painted during the 1890s, the period of his association with the Nabi circle. Taking its name from the Hebrew word for prophet, the group included Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Paul Sérusier and Félix Vallotton, with one of its primary tenets declared by Jan Verkade as: 'No more easel pictures! Away with the useless bits of furniture...There are no such things as pictures, there is only decoration' (quoted in A.C. Ritchie, Edouard Vuillard, New York, 1954, p. 19). Vuillard responded to the new Nabi theories by creating a suggestive and sensuous art. His primary thematic focus was the quiet intimacy of domestic life. As Elizabeth Easton has written, 'The interior was the locus of the family, a place where Vuillard beheld the quiet dignity of labor and its characteristic gestures. Family life, confined within these ever-present walls, aroused Vuillard's most powerful emotions, so that his interiors also function as theaters within which the family enacted the compelling drama of everyday life' (E. Easton, The Intimate Eye of Edouard Vuillard, Katonah, 1989, p. 14).
By 1896, when Au piano was painted, Vuillard was already a well-known artist, having attained almost instant artistic success in the 1890s. His close friendship with Thadée and Misia Natanson, leading lights of the avant-garde in fin-de-siècle Paris, was in many ways life-changing for the young artist. Thadée was an art critic and co-director of La Revue blanche, a cutting-edge journal and his young, gifted Polish wife Misia hosted one of the leading Parisian salons. Important advocates and patrons of the Nabi movement, they were instrumental in introducing Vuillard to other collectors in their fashionable social circle.
Misia was an accomplished pianist, a favourite of Gabriel Fauré, and Vuillard depicts her in the present work, giving a performance of Schubert or possibly Beethoven for three friends in the attic of La Grangette, the Natanson's home at Valvins. Vuillard presents her in a yellow dress, her face in profile, defined by the support and set again a bright, white background. This cropped composition is a wonderfully intimate depiction of Vuillard's friends, centred on Misia, with whom he was certainly in love. He often holidayed with the Natansons despite the awkwardness of this situation 'because I was as happy there as I'm capable of being (quoted in exh. cat. Vuillard, London, 1991, p. 47). His success and new friendships led to a gradual relaxation of his earlier style and loosening of his brushstroke, as is evident in the present work.
By 1896, when Au piano was painted, Vuillard was already a well-known artist, having attained almost instant artistic success in the 1890s. His close friendship with Thadée and Misia Natanson, leading lights of the avant-garde in fin-de-siècle Paris, was in many ways life-changing for the young artist. Thadée was an art critic and co-director of La Revue blanche, a cutting-edge journal and his young, gifted Polish wife Misia hosted one of the leading Parisian salons. Important advocates and patrons of the Nabi movement, they were instrumental in introducing Vuillard to other collectors in their fashionable social circle.
Misia was an accomplished pianist, a favourite of Gabriel Fauré, and Vuillard depicts her in the present work, giving a performance of Schubert or possibly Beethoven for three friends in the attic of La Grangette, the Natanson's home at Valvins. Vuillard presents her in a yellow dress, her face in profile, defined by the support and set again a bright, white background. This cropped composition is a wonderfully intimate depiction of Vuillard's friends, centred on Misia, with whom he was certainly in love. He often holidayed with the Natansons despite the awkwardness of this situation 'because I was as happy there as I'm capable of being (quoted in exh. cat. Vuillard, London, 1991, p. 47). His success and new friendships led to a gradual relaxation of his earlier style and loosening of his brushstroke, as is evident in the present work.