Madame Vuillard Cousant

Édouard Vuillard painted this intimate portrait of his mother sewing, a subject he returned to obsessively throughout his career. She sits absorbed in her needlework, surrounded by the patterned fabrics and wallpapers that give Vuillard's interiors their distinctive claustrophobic warmth. Soft earth tones blend figure and setting into a unified surface.

Vuillard lived with his mother until her death in 1928, and she appears in hundreds of his paintings. As a founding member of Les Nabis, he developed a decorative style influenced by Japanese prints and Gauguin. This work remains in a private collection.