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Lot Essay
By 1907 Vuillard had grown tired of his residence on the rue de la Tour in the haut-bourgeois Passy quarter in Paris. Early in 1908 he and his mother moved to 26, rue de Calais, in the more modest Batignolles district, and remained there for the next twenty years. They lived at first in an apartment on the fourth floor, and in October 1908 they moved downstairs to the second story. The apartments overlooked the Place Vintimille (now the Place Adolphe-Max) with its oval-shaped park, le Square Berlioz, named in 1905 in commemoration of the composer Hector Berlioz, who had resided nearby at 4, rue de Calais and whose monument, erected in the central island in 1886, can be glimpsed in several of Vuillard's paintings.
From his window Vuillard executed numerous studies and paintings of the park, which became also the subject of some of his most inspired photographs. His most well-known paintings on this subject are the five-panel screen La place Vintimille, which he painted for his American friend Marguerite Chapin in 1911 (Salomon & Cogeval, no. IX-165; collection of The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), and the large view of the square and surrounding streets being repaved, Le Square Berlioz, 1915-1923 (Salomon & Cogeval, no. X-102; collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). The park's kiosk, which displayed posters, newspapers and announcements, is visible to the left of the tree in the present picture.
It may appear ironic that Vuillard would choose to live in a middle class neighbourhood when his circle of friends were mainly well-to-do members of the leisure, arts-oriented upper class, but Vuillard enjoyed the livelier streets and more varied architecture of the Batignolles neighbourhood, and was fond of observing the people of varied backgrounds who frequented the park.
In the present painting, a mother or nanny sits on the left-hand bench as a young child holding a hoop stands beside her, and the red outfit of another child contrasts with the drab every day attire of the women sitting on the bench at right. These are the types of lower middle-class working people that Vuillard gew up among and who once worked for his mother in her small corset-making business. The artist would never completely sever the emotional ties to his humble, hard working family background.
From his window Vuillard executed numerous studies and paintings of the park, which became also the subject of some of his most inspired photographs. His most well-known paintings on this subject are the five-panel screen La place Vintimille, which he painted for his American friend Marguerite Chapin in 1911 (Salomon & Cogeval, no. IX-165; collection of The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), and the large view of the square and surrounding streets being repaved, Le Square Berlioz, 1915-1923 (Salomon & Cogeval, no. X-102; collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). The park's kiosk, which displayed posters, newspapers and announcements, is visible to the left of the tree in the present picture.
It may appear ironic that Vuillard would choose to live in a middle class neighbourhood when his circle of friends were mainly well-to-do members of the leisure, arts-oriented upper class, but Vuillard enjoyed the livelier streets and more varied architecture of the Batignolles neighbourhood, and was fond of observing the people of varied backgrounds who frequented the park.
In the present painting, a mother or nanny sits on the left-hand bench as a young child holding a hoop stands beside her, and the red outfit of another child contrasts with the drab every day attire of the women sitting on the bench at right. These are the types of lower middle-class working people that Vuillard gew up among and who once worked for his mother in her small corset-making business. The artist would never completely sever the emotional ties to his humble, hard working family background.