4. Edouard Vuillard
(1868-1940)
La Couturiére

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Vuillard, La Couturiére

La Couturiére

Color lithograph, 1894, from the Album de la Revue Blanche, 248 x 169 mm., Roger-Marx 13 iv/iv. Fine impression on wove paper with good margins outside the image and therefore from the edition of 100 published in the album in 1895, rather than from the magazine publication. This was only Vuillard’s second color lithograph and, like the first, confined to two colors, in this case, blue and ochre, with some overprinting. The subject is one of typical Vuillardian intimacy, and the situation, by a light-flooded window, gives the central part of the work a diaphanous quality, partially surrounded by the patterning on the sides and bottom. The colors are chosen not to describe reality, but to produce mood and pattern. The work rather clearly differentiates even early Vuillard from Bonnard, frequently confused with one another in the same way that, musically, Debussy has been confused with Ravel. In each case the language may be similar but the artistic personalities are quite different.