Young Woman Seated on a Sofa

“I don’t make portraits,” Vuillard once declared, “I paint people at home.” No painting is known to correspond to this sketch, which shows a typical “portrait” as Vuillard conceived of them: more space and attention is devoted to the furniture and objects surrounding the sitter than to the figure herself. The aim was to capture his subject’s personality through a detailed evocation of her environment. During the last twenty-five years of his life, Vuillard’s notoriety rested primarily on such portraits, which were highly sought after by members of the Parisian uppermiddle class.

Édouard Vuillard
1868–1940
Young Woman Seated on a Sofa, ca. 1920
Graphite on page removed from a sketchbook
Gift of Mary Jo and Sheldon Weinig; 2019.287
© Édouard Vuillard / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York