Edouard Vuillard
1895
The Album

Oil on canvas
26 3/4 × 80 1/2 in. (67.9 × 204.5 cm)
 
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg Collection, Gift of Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg, 2000, Bequest of Walter H. Annenberg, 2002, Accession Number: 2000.93.2
 
Curatorial description (Accessed: 5 July 2021)
In 1894-95, Thadée and Misia Natanson commissioned from Vuillard a series of five decorative panels known collectively as The Album. The unusual character of these works matched that of the Natansons' Paris apartment, a large open space adjoined by several small alcove areas. Its unconventional decor reflected Misia's taste, which was inspired by the English Arts and Crafts movement. The apartment often served as an alternative office for Thadée's lively avant-garde journal, La Revue blanche. Among the contributors to this influential publication were Claude Debussy, Léon Blum, Stéphane Mallarmé, and André Gide. The evocative Symbolist qualities of Mallarmé's poetry and Debussy's music find echoes in Vuillard's five panels, which take their name from this painting.
 
LL/111951