The Game of Checkers (La Partie de Dames (Tristan Bernard chez Madame Aron))
Edouard VUILLARD
(French, 1868-1940)
The Game of Checkers (La Partie de Dames (Tristan Bernard chez Madame Aron))
Dateca. 1905
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionsoverall: 16 1/2 x 15 1/2 in. (41.9 x 39.4 cm)
frame: 24 1/2 x 23 3/8 x 2 1/2 in. (62.2 x 59.4 x 6.4 cm)
ClassificationPAINTINGS
Credit LineSBMA, Gift of Robert B. and Mercedes H. Eichholz
Object number1991.46.2
Subject(s)
- men
- women
- boys
- girls
Collection
- 20th century European
On View
On viewLabel TextIn a bourgeois interior, rendered in a muted palette of browns, grays, and cream, Vuillard depicts his friend, the playwright Tristan Bernard, playing checkers with an opponent whose figure is cropped by the edge of the canvas. This was one of Vuillard’s favorite techniques, informed by his interest in photography. The women in the background are Bernard’s future wife Marcelle Aron and her cousin Lucy Hessel, Vuillard’s lover and the wife of his dealer Jos Hessel. The inclusion of lighter tones is typical of Vuillard’s work from this period, when the claustrophobic interiors that had previously dominated his oeuvre gradually gave way to less emotionally fraught scenes inspired by the rural holidays he spent with the Hessels.
