Details

Object type

painting

Title

Woman in Blue with Child

Artist/Maker

Jean Edouard Vuillard artist

Culture/School

French

Date

1899-1940

Materials

oil on compressed card

Dimensions

unframed: 486 x 565 mm; framed: 660 x 750 mm

Description

With her back to us, a woman with brown hair, wearing a black scarf and bright blue garment interacts with a rosy-cheeked and blue-eyed infant. The room is full of patterns, including yellow, floral wallpaper; a white, blue and red patterned bed; and a folding screen.

Until recently this painting was thought to show Vuillard's sister, Marie and her baby daughter. The woman in the painting has, however, been identified as Vuillard's muse, Misia Natanson, and the baby as her half-brother Cipa's first child Mimi Godebska. This claustrophobic room, a riot of floral patterns was in the Natanson's Parisian apartment. Drawn into the painting by rich colour and by a profusion of surfaces and textures, the viewer is presented with a roomful of puzzles. There are numerous ambiguities of form and space, for example, is that a dog or a dog and a cat behind Misia on the chaise longue?

Credit Line/Donor

Gifted by Sir John Richmond, 1948

ID Number

2814

Location

In storage