About this artwork

This room is part of the apartment Vuillard shared with his mother at 28 rue Truffaut, Paris. The woman seen on the left of this painting is the artist’s mother, who ran a corset-making business from home. Vuillards’s painting is a study of the relationship between indoor and outdoor light. Much like the Impressionist painters who worked some years prior to the date of this painting, Vuillard was particularly interested on the effect of light on colour. The tonal quality of this scene and the dappled brushstrokes make the painting less flat and more decorative than earlier work.

Updated before 2020

  • artist:
    Edouard Vuillard (1868 - 1940) French
  • title:
    La Fenêtre ouverte [The Open Window]
  • date created:
    About 1902 - 1903; re-worked 1915
  • materials:
    Oil on millboard
  • measurements:
    56.90 x 45.00 cm; Framed: 78.50 x 66.30 x 9.30 cm
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Presented by Sir Alexander Maitland in memory of his wife Rosalind, 1960
  • accession number:
    GMA 2933
  • gallery:
  • subject:
  • artwork photographed by:
    Antonia Reeve
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Edouard Vuillard

Edouard Vuillard