NARRATOR:
Edouard Vuillard’s immense pastoral view of rolling terrain invites our eyes to linger along the winding paths, in the valleys, vineyards, and fields. This rural scene is based on a contemporary site just outside Paris.
The tree at the center divides the picture into two equal parts, unified by the muted green tones that convey a sense of peace and stability. The complex textures, arrangement in flat decorative zones, and painted border recall 16th and 17th century tapestries called verdure, or “greenery” tapestries.
Vuillard included some wonderful accents. At the bottom left, a little girl in a bright pink pinafore leads your eye into the distance, toward a kneeling worker. And almost hidden at the bottom—just to the right of center—a mottled cat prowls in the greenery. These tiny figures, and the white houses in the distance, add touches of intimacy to this huge canvas.
The motifs in Vuillard’s landscape are well-suited for a private home. In fact, he created The First Fruits as a décoration, a work made to decorate a specific interior—in this case, the dining room in the Paris home of the wealthy banker Adam Natanson. Natanson’s son Thadée and his wife Misia were major patrons of Vuillard. Between 1882 and 1899, Vuillard made thirty such décorations, the largest and finest of them, including this one, for the Natanson family.
First Fruits
1899
Édouard Vuillard (French, 1868-1940)
On View
At fourteen feet across, First Fruits is the largest canvas Vuillard ever painted. He likely sketched its composition from the window of a villa outside Paris where he passed the summer of 1899 with his sister, her husband, and their young daughter. The painting’s grand scale and border of flowering plants, however, indicate that this is no spontaneous, outdoor sketch but a kind of patterned, painted tapestry, originally conceived as a decoration for the private library of a Parisian banker. Though inspired by the pleasures of a family holiday in the countryside, the picture, as one contemporary critic remarked, was quite evidently “painted in a city and for a city apartment.”
Details
- Artist Name: Édouard Vuillard (French, 1868-1940)
- Title: First Fruits
- Date: 1899
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 96 x 170 in. (243.8 x 431.8 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1973.33.1.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation; Photography courtesy the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Object Information
Commissioned by Adam Natanson (d. 1906), for 85, rue Jouffroy, Paris, by descent to his son;
Thadée Natanson, Paris (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 13 June 1908, lot 63, as Les premiers fruits, for Ffr 1200 to);
Alexandre Natanson, Paris (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 16 May 1929, lot 126, ill., as Les premiers fruits, to);
Mme. Bloch, to;
Léon Blum (d. 1950), Paris, 1929-1950, to;
Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., New York;
[Wildenstein, New York];
Private collection, Switzerland;
[Wildenstein, New York, sold 1973 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
Oil sketches relating to this painting were on sale at Christie’s (New York), Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture, 17 May 1983, lot 29; and Sotheby’s (New York), Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture, Part II, 10 May 1989, lot 331.
Thadée Natanson, Paris (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 13 June 1908, lot 63, as Les premiers fruits, for Ffr 1200 to);
Alexandre Natanson, Paris (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 16 May 1929, lot 126, ill., as Les premiers fruits, to);
Mme. Bloch, to;
Léon Blum (d. 1950), Paris, 1929-1950, to;
Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., New York;
[Wildenstein, New York];
Private collection, Switzerland;
[Wildenstein, New York, sold 1973 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
Oil sketches relating to this painting were on sale at Christie’s (New York), Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture, 17 May 1983, lot 29; and Sotheby’s (New York), Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture, Part II, 10 May 1989, lot 331.
[on loan]
- Paris, Salon, 1904-10 to
[on loan]
- Munich, Secession, 1908 to
E. Vuillard
- Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 1938-05 to 1938-07
Vuillard: Loan Exhibition, Under the Patronage of Monsieur Michel Legendre, Consul General of France in New York, and Monsieur Edouard Morot-Sir, Cultural Counselor to the French Embassy, for the Benefit of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
- Wildenstein & Co. (New York, N.Y.), 1964-10-16 to 1964-11-21
The Nabis
- Norton Simon Museum, 1992-09-24 to 1993-07-18
Painted Tapestries: Reuniting Two Decorative Paintings by Édouard Vuillard
- Art Institute of Chicago, 2015-07-11 to 2015-10-07
Paintings from the Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
- Portland Art Museum, 1956-03-02 to 1956-04-15
- Seattle Art Museum, 1956-04-27 to 1956-05-27
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1956-06-12 to 1956-07-11
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1956-07-26 to 1956-08-26
- Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1956-09-08 to 1956-10-07
- City Art Museum of St. Louis, 1956-10-19 to 1956-11-18
- Kansas City, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, 1956-11-30 to 1957-01-02
- Detroit Institute of Arts, 1957-01-18 to 1957-02-17
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1957-03-07 to 1957-04-14
Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) Charles Hug
- Kunsthalle Basel, 1949-03-26 to 1949-05-01
Exceptional Loans: Renoir, Van Gogh, Vuillard. Three Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum at the Musée d'Orsay
- Musée d'Orsay, 2015-03-26 to 2015-06-22
Three Centuries of French Art: Selections from The Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art and the Norton Simon Foundation_2
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1974-10-19 to 1976-06-15
Reinstallation of South Wing
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-10-07 to 1995-08-13
- Dugdale, James, Apollo, p. 99
- Salomon, Antoine; and Cogeval, Guy, Edouard Vuillard Catalogue Raisonne: Paintings and Pastels, fig. VII-63 pp. 573-575
- Bareau, Juliet Wilson, Revue de l'Art, p. 46
- Benjamin, Roger, Art Bulletin, fig. 3 pp. 298-300
- Groom, Gloria, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, pp. 147-165, 180-182
- Dumas, Ann; and Guy Cogeval, Vuillard, pp. 31-33
- Thomson, Belinda, Vuillard, fig. 38 pp. 49-50, 115
- Brettell, Richard, Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, p. 7
- Bacou, R., Art de France, n. 33 p. 196
- Ostini, Fritz von, Die Kunst für Alle, p. 349
- The French Impressionists in Southern California: Paintings, Sculptures and Prints in Public Collections. A Guidebook and Catalogue, p. 80
- Segard, Achille, Peintres d'aujourd'hui: Les Decorateurs, 1914, pp. 253, 262-266, 321
- Roger-Marx, Claude, Vuillard: His Life and Work, 1946, pp. 137-138
- Chastel, André, Vuillard 1868-1940, 1946, pp. 53, 115
- Warnod, Jeanine, E. Vuillard, 1989, pp. 54-55
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 173
- Frèches-Thory, Clare; and Antoine Terrasse, Les Nabis, 1990, pp. 146-147, 150
- Cogeval, Guy, Vuillard. Le temps détourné, 1993,
- Groom, Gloria, Edouard Vuillard Painter-Decorator: Patrons and Projects, 1892-1912, 1993, pls. 195, 196, 199, 204, 213 pp. 65, 123, 124, 126, 127, 132, 145
- Groom, Gloria, Beyond the Easel: Decorative Painting by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, and Roussel, 1890-1930, 2001, under no. 41, fig. 1 p. 136
- Brettell, Richard R. and Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum, volume 1, 2006,
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 994 p. 360
- Emily Beeny, Stéphane Guégan, Pas de deux: An Exchange of Masterpieces, 2015, pp. 3, 27, 55, back cover
Additional Artwork by Artist
Landscapes and Interiors: Across the Fields (Paysages et Intérieurs: À Travers Champs)
Édouard Vuillard
1899
Landscapes and Interiors: Album Cover (Paysages et Intérieurs: Couverture de l’Album)
Édouard Vuillard
1899
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