GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Édouard Vuillard traveled by train to the Brittany resort town of Penchâteau in July 1908 to visit his friends Joseph and Lucie Hessel, who had rented a house there called Ker Panurge. Joseph (called Jos) Hessel was a partner in the large art gallery Bernheim- Jeune, which handled Vuillard’s work as well as that of his friend Pierre Bonnard. While in Brittany, Vuillard was inspired to make a large number of works, among the most important of which is The Tent, which he referred to in his journal entry of July 29 as “a sketch in tempera, the tent.” He had traveled to Brittany with Alfred Natanson, his wife (actress Marthe Mellot), and their two daughters. Later in the month, the painter Pierre Bonnard, his common-law wife Marthe, and Vuillard’s mother arrived to complete the house party. Many others came for luncheons, dinners, and long leisurely afternoons, and Vuillard represented these occasions almost as if he were a court painter for the Jewish intelligentsia. Photographs by both Vuillard and Natanson of an afternoon visit probably dating from July 28, 1908, are sited in and around a striped garden tent. Vuillard made many sketches of this afternoon; two are preserved in the Reves Collection (1985.R.84).
Vuillard's own description of The Tent as a "sketch" ("pochade") links it to impressionist practice. Monet used the same word in describing his sketches of the waterside café La Grenouillère in 1869. Vuillard, like Monet, wanted his work to convey the immediacy experienced at the site - in this case, a windy coastal garden in Brittany - and so it does. The Tent is alive with gesture; our eyes pass rapidly across the surface, alighting at a figure or a part of the tent, but never for very long. As we look at his "sketch," we feel precisely the sensation of a blustery, windswept afternoon spent conversing and dining with friends.
Adapted from
Richard Brettell, "Impressionist Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection," (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 138-39.
NOTES
Updated exhibition history and provenance according to most recent, 2009, research document in object file.
Former title added with remark. "La Tente: Amfreville" (1906) assigned by Jacques Salomon in 1953. This title/date was revised by Antoine Salomon c. 1985.
Remark added to date-- For both "The Tent" and its sketches (1985.R.83 and 1985.R.84) the date of creation as summer 1908 conflicts with the supposed first exhibition of the completed work in February 1908. This discrepancy appears in numerous documents in the object file for 1985.R.83 and remains unresolved as of April 2015. (Emily Schiller, Digital Collections Content Coordinator)
EXHIBITION DATE- the exhibition that conflicts with the origin of this work to July 1908 is-
1908: Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, “Vuillard,” February 17-29, 1908, no. 10.
At least one notation in the object file included this exhibition as NOVEMBER 1908. If this can be verified, then this would resolve the current conflicting information.
Emailed BMac to fix citation of Brettell essay in current public notes.
Added Mind's Eye essay as text entry. Added 1985 Reves catalogue as a text entry.
Are The Tent and its studies entered in TMS as a virtual object? If not, should they be?
This note was previously tagged #routed (and possibly !Routed_Feb15). I am removing those tags and replacing with #draft so that this note proceeds to GDocs for routing and is harvested to Brain. (EAS, 12/19/2016)
See my notes in the contextual images field regarding better reproductions.
Time constraints made it impossible to get this image added to Piction for use in the OLC.
Photographs probably dating from 28 July 1908 by both Vuillard (who was a gifted and passionate photographer) and Alfred Natanson documents an afternoon visit to Ker Panurge by other friends, including the writers Romain Coolus and Tristan Bernard, and Bernard's wife, Marcelle Aron. Many of these photographs are sited in and around a striped garden tent set up to protect the weekend party from the wind and sun of the Brittany coast.
Example of these photos shown below, taken from low-quality photocopy in education files. Better reproductions of the source material are available in the 2003 catalogue raisonné.
[La Tente rayee (1908, private collection)- referenced in Brettell essay; did not search for image online.]
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Depicted- Le Pouliguen
Depicted- Le Baule
Process/materials
paper
canvas
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
garden
house
pole
wind
bohemian
summer
families
vacation houses
tent
figures
vacations
RELATED OBJECTS
Vuillard, The Tent studies, 1985.R.84
PROVENANCE
1908: Edouard Vuillard [1]
1908-1919: Bernheim-Jeune (gallery), Paris, on consignment from the artist starting September 28, 1908 [2]
1919- d. 1940: Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) [3]
1940- Before 1948: Lefranc Gallery, Paris [4]
Before 1948- 1985: Wendy (1916-2007) and Emery Reves (1904-1981), Villa La Pausa, Roquebrune, France [5]
From 1985: Dallas Museum of Art, gift from the above
Notes: The main source for this provenance is Juliet Bareau c/o Antoine Salomon, correspondence 8 July 1985, Collections Records Object File.
[1] The artist and Alfred Natanson both took photographs during a group vacation in the resort town of Penchâteau. The photos are likely dated 28 July 1908 and the painting is presumed to have been completed shortly after.
[2] This is the date Bernheim-Jeune (art dealers) purchased the painting from Vuillard. It was bought for 350 francs. It was number 16762.
[3] The artist took the picture back in exchange for another work. The painting remained in Vuillard’s collection until his death in 1940. The painting probably passed onto Vuillard’s heirs, the Roussel and Salomon families. Juliet Bareau wrote that it was probably sold although when or under what specific circumstances remains unclear.
[4] Mathias Chivot provided this information.
[5] Juliet Bareau (Antoine Salomon’s assistant) believed that the Reves’ must have acquired the picture before 1948 because that is when they put the painting “on deposit” with the gallery M. Benezit.
1908-1919: Bernheim-Jeune (gallery), Paris, on consignment from the artist starting September 28, 1908 [2]
1919- d. 1940: Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) [3]
1940- Before 1948: Lefranc Gallery, Paris [4]
Before 1948- 1985: Wendy (1916-2007) and Emery Reves (1904-1981), Villa La Pausa, Roquebrune, France [5]
From 1985: Dallas Museum of Art, gift from the above
Notes: The main source for this provenance is Juliet Bareau c/o Antoine Salomon, correspondence 8 July 1985, Collections Records Object File.
[1] The artist and Alfred Natanson both took photographs during a group vacation in the resort town of Penchâteau. The photos are likely dated 28 July 1908 and the painting is presumed to have been completed shortly after.
[2] This is the date Bernheim-Jeune (art dealers) purchased the painting from Vuillard. It was bought for 350 francs. It was number 16762.
[3] The artist took the picture back in exchange for another work. The painting remained in Vuillard’s collection until his death in 1940. The painting probably passed onto Vuillard’s heirs, the Roussel and Salomon families. Juliet Bareau wrote that it was probably sold although when or under what specific circumstances remains unclear.
[4] Mathias Chivot provided this information.
[5] Juliet Bareau (Antoine Salomon’s assistant) believed that the Reves’ must have acquired the picture before 1948 because that is when they put the painting “on deposit” with the gallery M. Benezit.
AUDIO ASSETS
Belinda Thomson, "Edouard Vuillard: Exploring the Limits of Intimism," lecture April 1, 2010, Dallas Museum of Art. Transcribed. (Lecture was one of two delivered on the same evening. Dr. Thomson gave her presentation first.)
13315520: UMO
Object number entered in Piction. Deleting UMO tag from this object note.
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
- Vuillard's travelling companions, the Natansons, were part of his professional network. Alfred and his brother, Thadée Natanson, were the cofounders of La Revue blanche, an important avant-garde French periodical in the 1890s. Thadée was one of Vuillard's earliest and most loyal patrons.
- The figures shown in The Tent are thought to be Vuillard's dealer Joseph Hessel and his wife, Lucie Hessel (on the left), along with the novelist and playwright, Tristan Bernard (with a beard) and his mistress, Marcelle Aron (who also happened to be Lucie Hessel's sister).
- Vuillard used distemper paint throughout his career, but his choice of medium posed special challenges. In order to mix the pigments, Vuillard needed to purchase, divide, and dissolve large sheets of glue. Extra time was needed to prepare paper surfaces to make them less absorbent. Colors often needed to be remixed or carefully chosen in order to allow for the lightening effect when the paint dried. (For more information on Vuillard's techniques, see Jacques Salomon, "Vuillard's Techniqe," in Edouard Vuillard 1868-1940, ed. John Russell (London, 1971), 137-140.)
TEACHING IDEAS
RULES
Apply to objects where number equals 1985.R.83
Category
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General Description
Édouard Vuillard traveled by train to the Brittany resort town of Penchâteau in July 1908 to visit his friends Joseph and Lucie Hessel, who had rented a house there called Ker Panurge. Joseph (called Jos) Hessel was a partner in the large art gallery Bernheim- Jeune, which handled Vuillard’s work as well as that of his friend Pierre Bonnard. While in Brittany, Vuillard was inspired to make a large number of works, among the most important of which is The Tent, which he referred to in his journal entry of July 29 as “a sketch in tempera, the tent.” He had traveled to Brittany with Alfred Natanson, his wife (actress Marthe Mellot), and their two daughters. Later in the month, the painter Pierre Bonnard, his common-law wife Marthe, and Vuillard’s mother arrived to complete the house party. Many others came for luncheons, dinners, and long leisurely afternoons, and Vuillard represented these occasions almost as if he were a court painter for the Jewish intelligentsia. Photographs by both Vuillard and Natanson of an afternoon visit probably dating from July 28, 1908, are sited in and around a striped garden tent. Vuillard made many sketches of this afternoon; two are preserved in the Reves Collection (1985.R.84).
Vuillard's own description of The Tent as a "sketch" ("pochade") links it to impressionist practice. Monet used the same word in describing his sketches of the waterside café La Grenouillère in 1869. Vuillard, like Monet, wanted his work to convey the immediacy experienced at the site - in this case, a windy coastal garden in Brittany - and so it does. The Tent is alive with gesture; our eyes pass rapidly across the surface, alighting at a figure or a part of the tent, but never for very long. As we look at his "sketch," we feel precisely the sensation of a blustery, windswept afternoon spent conversing and dining with friends.
Adapted from
Richard Brettell, "Impressionist Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection," (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 1995), 138-39.
Fun Facts
- Vuillard's travelling companions, the Natansons, were part of his professional network. Alfred and his brother, Thadée Natanson, were the cofounders of La Revue blanche, an important avant-garde French periodical in the 1890s. Thadée was one of Vuillard's earliest and most loyal patrons.
- The figures shown in The Tent are thought to be Vuillard's dealer Joseph Hessel and his wife, Lucie Hessel (on the left), along with the novelist and playwright, Tristan Bernard (with a beard) and his mistress, Marcelle Aron (who also happened to be Lucie Hessel's sister).
- Vuillard used distemper paint throughout his career, but his choice of medium posed special challenges. In order to mix the pigments, Vuillard needed to purchase, divide, and dissolve large sheets of glue. Extra time was needed to prepare paper surfaces to make them less absorbent. Colors often needed to be remixed or carefully chosen in order to allow for the lightening effect when the paint dried. (For more information on Vuillard's techniques, see Jacques Salomon, "Vuillard's Techniqe," in Edouard Vuillard 1868-1940, ed. John Russell (London, 1971), 137-140.)
Archival Resources
Web Resources
Notes
Updated exhibition history and provenance according to most recent, 2009, research document in object file.
Former title added with remark. "La Tente: Amfreville" (1906) assigned by Jacques Salomon in 1953. This title/date was revised by Antoine Salomon c. 1985.
Remark added to date-- For both "The Tent" and its sketches (1985.R.83 and 1985.R.84) the date of creation as summer 1908 conflicts with the supposed first exhibition of the completed work in February 1908. This discrepancy appears in numerous documents in the object file for 1985.R.83 and remains unresolved as of April 2015. (Emily Schiller, Digital Collections Content Coordinator)
EXHIBITION DATE- the exhibition that conflicts with the origin of this work to July 1908 is-
1908: Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, “Vuillard,” February 17-29, 1908, no. 10.
At least one notation in the object file included this exhibition as NOVEMBER 1908. If this can be verified, then this would resolve the current conflicting information.
Emailed BMac to fix citation of Brettell essay in current public notes.
Added Mind's Eye essay as text entry. Added 1985 Reves catalogue as a text entry.
Are The Tent and its studies entered in TMS as a virtual object? If not, should they be?
This note was previously tagged #routed (and possibly !Routed_Feb15). I am removing those tags and replacing with #draft so that this note proceeds to GDocs for routing and is harvested to Brain. (EAS, 12/19/2016)
See my notes in the contextual images field regarding better reproductions.
Time constraints made it impossible to get this image added to Piction for use in the OLC.
Photographs probably dating from 28 July 1908 by both Vuillard (who was a gifted and passionate photographer) and Alfred Natanson documents an afternoon visit to Ker Panurge by other friends, including the writers Romain Coolus and Tristan Bernard, and Bernard's wife, Marcelle Aron. Many of these photographs are sited in and around a striped garden tent set up to protect the weekend party from the wind and sun of the Brittany coast.
Example of these photos shown below, taken from low-quality photocopy in education files. Better reproductions of the source material are available in the 2003 catalogue raisonné.
[La Tente rayee (1908, private collection)- referenced in Brettell essay; did not search for image online.]
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Depicted- Le Pouliguen
Depicted- Le Baule
Process/materials
paper
canvas
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
garden
house
pole
wind
bohemian
summer
families
vacation houses
tent
figures
vacations
RELATED OBJECTS
Vuillard, The Tent studies, 1985.R.84
PROVENANCE
1908: Edouard Vuillard [1]
1908-1919: Bernheim-Jeune (gallery), Paris, on consignment from the artist starting September 28, 1908 [2]
1919- d. 1940: Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) [3]
1940- Before 1948: Lefranc Gallery, Paris [4]
Before 1948- 1985: Wendy (1916-2007) and Emery Reves (1904-1981), Villa La Pausa, Roquebrune, France [5]
From 1985: Dallas Museum of Art, gift from the above
Notes: The main source for this provenance is Juliet Bareau c/o Antoine Salomon, correspondence 8 July 1985, Collections Records Object File.
[1] The artist and Alfred Natanson both took photographs during a group vacation in the resort town of Penchâteau. The photos are likely dated 28 July 1908 and the painting is presumed to have been completed shortly after.
[2] This is the date Bernheim-Jeune (art dealers) purchased the painting from Vuillard. It was bought for 350 francs. It was number 16762.
[3] The artist took the picture back in exchange for another work. The painting remained in Vuillard’s collection until his death in 1940. The painting probably passed onto Vuillard’s heirs, the Roussel and Salomon families. Juliet Bareau wrote that it was probably sold although when or under what specific circumstances remains unclear.
[4] Mathias Chivot provided this information.
[5] Juliet Bareau (Antoine Salomon’s assistant) believed that the Reves’ must have acquired the picture before 1948 because that is when they put the painting “on deposit” with the gallery M. Benezit.
1908-1919: Bernheim-Jeune (gallery), Paris, on consignment from the artist starting September 28, 1908 [2]
1919- d. 1940: Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) [3]
1940- Before 1948: Lefranc Gallery, Paris [4]
Before 1948- 1985: Wendy (1916-2007) and Emery Reves (1904-1981), Villa La Pausa, Roquebrune, France [5]
From 1985: Dallas Museum of Art, gift from the above
Notes: The main source for this provenance is Juliet Bareau c/o Antoine Salomon, correspondence 8 July 1985, Collections Records Object File.
[1] The artist and Alfred Natanson both took photographs during a group vacation in the resort town of Penchâteau. The photos are likely dated 28 July 1908 and the painting is presumed to have been completed shortly after.
[2] This is the date Bernheim-Jeune (art dealers) purchased the painting from Vuillard. It was bought for 350 francs. It was number 16762.
[3] The artist took the picture back in exchange for another work. The painting remained in Vuillard’s collection until his death in 1940. The painting probably passed onto Vuillard’s heirs, the Roussel and Salomon families. Juliet Bareau wrote that it was probably sold although when or under what specific circumstances remains unclear.
[4] Mathias Chivot provided this information.
[5] Juliet Bareau (Antoine Salomon’s assistant) believed that the Reves’ must have acquired the picture before 1948 because that is when they put the painting “on deposit” with the gallery M. Benezit.
AUDIO ASSETS
Belinda Thomson, "Edouard Vuillard: Exploring the Limits of Intimism," lecture April 1, 2010, Dallas Museum of Art. Transcribed. (Lecture was one of two delivered on the same evening. Dr. Thomson gave her presentation first.)
13315520: UMO
Object number entered in Piction. Deleting UMO tag from this object note.
VIDEO ASSETS
rules
Apply To
Objects
number
Equals
1985.R.83
source file
object_notes_4_c-0087.xml.nores