La Cheminée

Artist Édouard Vuillard (1868 - 1940)

Date1905

MediumOil on cardboard

Dimensions51.4 × 77.5 cm

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineSir Hugh Lane Bequest, 1917, The National Gallery, London. In partnership with Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.

Object number3271

DescriptionÉdouard Vuillard was one of the main practitioners of intimate domestic genre painting 'Intimism'. This painting, a combination of an interior scene and a still-life, was painted in the artist's room at Château-Rouge in Amfreville, Normandy which was rented for the summers of 1905, 1906 and 1907 by the artist's friends Jos and Lucy Hessel.

An emphasis on surface pattern and decoration is one of the defining characteristics of Vuillard's work. The patterned floral wallpaper in this work vies for attention with the posy of wild flowers, bottles and illustrations on the mantelpiece. Above the mantelpiece, the end of a mirror framed in bamboo can be observed. Another painting is hung on the back wall and beneath this some white rags have been hung up to dry on a clothes rack. The marble mantelpiece juts out creating an almost three-dimensional effect. This together with the cropped effect calls to mind a photograph image. In its freely brushed surfaces, the picture reflects a handling close to Impressionism.

For a time, Vuillard was one of the central figures of the Nabi (this word means "prophet" in Hebrew), a group of Parisian avant-garde artists whose members included Pierre Bonnard and Félix Vallotton.

On the reverse of this painting there is a sketch of a woman and two children with two dogs on a beach.

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