Object Information

Edouard Vuillard
French, 1868-1940

Landscape: Window Overlooking the Woods, 1899

Oil on canvas
96 1/8 x 149 in. (249.2 x 378.5 cm)
Inscribed at lower right: E. Vuillard 99
L.L. and A.S. Coburn Fund, Martha E. Leverone Fund, Charles Norton Owen Fund, and anonymous restricted gift, 1981.77

© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Paris, Grand Palais, Salon d'automne, 2e exposition, October 15-November 15, 1904, cat. 1288.

Munich, Kunstsalon W. Zimmerman, March-April 15, 1908.

Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Le Décor de la vie de 1900 à 1925, 1937, cat. 201.

Paris, Museé des Arts Decoratifs, É. Vuillard, May- July 1938, cat. 69.

Basel, Kunsthalle, Édouard Vuillard, Charles Hug, March 26-May 1, 1949, cat. 230.

Paris, Museé National d’Art Moderne, Bonnard, Vuillard et les Nabis, June 8-October 2, 1955, cat. 221.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Beyond the Easel: Decorative Painting by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis and Roussel, 1890-1930, February 25-May 16, 2001, cat. 41 (ill.), traveled to New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 26-September 8, 2001.

Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, Edouard Vuillard, January 19-April 20, 2003, cat. 142 (ill.), traveled to Montreal, Musée de Beaux-Arts de Montreal, May 15, 2003-August 24, 2003 and Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, September 23, 2003-January 4, 2004 and Lodnon, Royal Academy of Arts, January 31-April 18, 2004.

Publication History

Fritz von Ostini, “Die Frühjahrsausstellung der Münchener Secession,” Die Kunst 17 (1907-1908), p. 350 (ill.).

A. Segard, Peintres d’aujord’hui: les décorateurs vol. 2 (Paris, 1914), pp. 253, 258-266, 321.

Claude Roger-Marx, Vuillard et son temps (Paris, 1945), pp. 138-139.

André Chastel, Vuillard (Paris, 1946), pp. 53, 115.

Claude Roger-Marx, Vuillard (Paris, 1948), pp. 15, 43, fig. 25.

Annette Vaillant, “Livret de Famille ,” L’Oeil (December 1956), pp. 25, 30.

Jacques Hillairet, Dictionnaire historique des rues de Paris (Paris, 1963), pp. 159, 157.

R. Bacou, “Décors d’appartements au temps des Nabis,” Art de France 4 (1964), p. 196.

J. Dugdale, “Vuillard, the decorator-I. First Phase: the 1890’s,” Apollo (February 1965), p. 99.

Félix Fénéon, Oeuvres plus que complétes vol. 1 (Geneve, 1970), p. 261.

Annette Vaillant, Le Pain Polka (Paris, 1974), pp. 41, 42, 141.

Grace Glueck, “Suit Alleges John Samuels Sold Paintings Included in Collateral,” New York Times (March 16, 1981).

“French Paintings Acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago,” The Burlington Magazine 126, 976 (July 1984), p. 465 (ill.).

The Impressionist Tradition: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago, exh. cat. (Tokyo, Seibu Museum of Art, 1986), p. 20.

Juliet Wilson Bareau, “Édouard Vuillard et les princes Bibesco,” Revue de L’Art 74 (1986), pp. 39, 46.

Richard Brettell, “Post-Impressionists,” (Chicago, 1987), pp. 83 (ill.), 119.

Belinda Thompson, Vuillard (New York, 1988), p. 49, fig. 37.

Gloria Groom, “Landscape as Decoration: Edouard Vuillard’s Ile-de-France Paintings for Adam Natanson,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 16, 2 (Chicago, 1990), pp. 147-165, 180-182.

Gloria Groom, Edouard Vuillard: Painter-Decorator (New Haven and London, 1993), pp. 123-34., ill. 197.

Antoine Salomon and Guy Congeval, Edouard Vuillard: The Inexhaustible Glance: Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels vol. 2 (Milan, 2003), no. VII-64 (ill.).

Richard Brettell and Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum vol. 1 (New Haven and London, 2006), under no. 132, p. 493, fig. 132a.

Ownership History

Commissioned from the artist by Adam Natanson (died 1906) to decorate the library of his apartment at 85 rue Jouffroy, Paris, 1899 [see "Inventaire après le décès de M. Natanson," dated November 12, 1906, no. 68, copy in curatorial file]; transferred to Alfred Natanson's appartment at 92 boulevard Malesherbes, Paris in 1904; by descent to Adam's son, Thadée Natanson, Paris, 1906; his sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, June 13, 1908, lot 64; sold to Alexandre Natanson, Paris for 2, 600 francs; loaned to Léon Blum, Paris, from 1910 to 1929 [see Édouard Vuillard, Journal, April 18, 1910, II.4, fol. 21r, Institute de France]; Alexandre Natanson Sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, May 16, 1929, lot 127 (ill.); sold to Mme Bloch for Léon Blum (died 1950), Paris [see annotated catalogue at the Getty Research Institute and Salomon and Congeval 2003]; by descent to Robert Blum (died 1974), Paris, 1950. Knoedler and Co., New York [according to Salomon and Congeval 2003]. Reader’s Digest Association, Pleasantville, New York [according to Salomon and Congeval 2003]. Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, October 23, 1974, lot 216 (ill.); sold to John S. Samuels III, New York; Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, October 22, 1980, lot 60A (ill.); sold to Herman Shickman Gallery, New York [see New York Times 1981]; sold to the Art Institute, 1981.