Alexandre Natanson, Paris

Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (n° de stock 20141), acquis le 13 janvier 1914 (1 250 Frs)

Gaston Bernheim de Villers, Paris (dans la succession Bernheim-Jeune de 1932)

Mme R.Mosnier (née Bernheim de Villers), Paris

Galerie Huguette Bérès, Paris

Galerie Bérès, Paris

Acquis auprès de cette dernière par l'actuel propriétaire le 15 décembre 2023

Collection Louis Grandchamp des Raux

Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Vuillard, novembre 1908, n° 44

San Francisco, Fine Arts French section catalogue, Panama Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, 1915, n° 518, p. 150

New York, Galerie Knoedler, Landscape in French Painting. XIX-XX Centuries, octobre-novembre 1931, n° 39, reproduit

Paris, Petit Palais, Les Maîtres de l’art indépendant 1895-1937, salle 15, juin-octobre 1937, n°30, p.58

Paris, Musée des Arts décoratifs, É.Vuillard, mai-juillet 1938, n°64, p.11

Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Œuvres de Vuillard de 1890 à 1910, janvier-février 1938, n°44

Paris, Grand Palais, Biennale des antiquaires, Galerie Huguette et Anisabelle Berès, septembre-octobre 1992

New York, The international Fine Art Fair, Galerie Huguette et Anisabelle Berès, mai 1995

Saint-Tropez, Musée de l’Annonciade, Lausanne, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Édouard Vuillard. La porte entrebâillée, juillet 2000 - janvier 2001, n°30, p. 172, pl. 22, reproduit p. 100

Paris, Musée d’Orsay, Le Cannet, Musée Bonnard, Misia, reine de Paris, juin 2012 - janvier 2013, n° 53, p.184, reproduit en couleur p.95

Lausanne, Fondation de l’Hermitage, Vuillard et l’art du Japon, juin-octobre 2023, n°112 p.251, reproduit en couleur p.175

L'Estampille-L'Objet d'Art, septembre 1992, reproduit p.90

G.Groom, Edouard Vuillard Painter-Decorator. Patrons and projects, 1892-1912, Yale University Press, New Haven, Londres, 1993, fig.242, reproduit p.152-153

A. Salomon, G. Cogeval, Vuillard, le regard innombrable, catalogue critique des peintures et pastels, Skira/Seuil - Wildenstein Institute, Paris, 2003, n°VI-96, reproduit en couleur p.516

Gazette Drouot, n°13, 5 avril 2019, reproduit p.23

An admirer of and inspiration for the Nabis, Misia Godebska (1872- 1950) was the égérie for the most important artists in the period around 1900. In fin-de-siècle Parisian society, she embodied the roles of both muse and patron. Born in Saint Petersburg in 1871, the daughter of a Polish painter and a virtuoso violinist, Misia received a solid musical education and distinguished herself as a talented pianist.

In 1893, she married Thadée Natanson, the son of a banker and co-founder, alongside his brothers, of La Revue Blanche (1889–1903) (ill. 1), an avantgarde arts journal that brought together the most progressive minds of the time. This marriage placed her at the heart of the artistic exuberance that marked the end of the century. Sh held a salon in her apartment on Rue Saint-Florentin, where she brought together writers, poets, musicians and painters of the younger generation, ardent advocates of Symbolist and decorative art (ill. 2). At the height of her influence, Misia was one of the most depicted women of her time, posing for Bonnard (ill. 3), Vallotton, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Vuillard (ill. 4). Vuillard, with his reserved temperament and little interest in society life, was only a few years her elder and the two were particularly close, and together were among the most faithful contributors to La Revue blanche.

Vuillard’s constant closeness to Misia gradually led to his falling in love. Nicknamed ’the {Madame} Pompadour of La Revue blanche’, Misia – beautiful, capricious and domineering – was the epitome of the elegant Parisian woman.

If Vuillard fully revealed his sensuality in his art, if he gave himself over to what art historian André Chastel aptly describes as a “libertinage de la sensation”, it was indeed to Misia that he owed it: to her constant presence, as well as to the lingering impression left upon him by her voice and her scent. At the time, the young woman occupied a central place in Vuillard’s work.

This work, brimming with passion, depicts Misia wearing a long white dress with bouffant sleeves. Like an apparition, she strolls through the woods, blending into the lush greenery that surrounds her. Her posture and the sweeping movement

of her dress create a highly decorative arabesque. Vuillard, who at that time tended to dissolve bodies, objects, flowers, drapery and light into a single pictorial texture, consolidated this vision through his contact with Misia. In the midst of the Nabi period, he unites the touches of colour, making them resonate with one another to suggest, with great sensitivity, the bark of the trees, the thickness of the foliage and the fusion of the figure with her surroundings. These small touches cause the colours to vibrate and create a sensation of luminous quivering, whilst their unfinished appearance accentuates the spontaneity of the scene.

The portraits that Vuillard devoted to Misia prolong, in silence, the intimate dialogue between the painter and his model. Through them, he manages to capture, as if it were an extra dimension of the soul, an immaterial existence.

Fig. 1 : Affiche de Toulouse-Lautrec représentant Misia Natanson pour La Revue Blanche, 1895

Fig. 2 : Misia Natanson 1896-1897 Contretype d’une photographie argentique

Fig. 3 : Pierre Bonnard, Misia Gobedska et Thadée Natanson, 1902, huile sur toile, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruxelles

Fig. 4 : Édouard Vuillard, La femme au fauteuil (Misia et Thadée Natanson), 1896, huile sur papier contrecollé sur carton