Madame Vuillard with a Bowl

Vuillard painted this in 1898, when he was about 30 and still sharing a Paris flat with his mother. She sits at the table holding a blue and white bowl up in both hands, her eyes on something outside the picture. On the dark cloth lie a white dish with a green pattern, a jug and a knife with a pale handle. Behind her a wall is covered in a busy red pattern with small pictures set into it, and a door stands open onto the next room. In April 1899 the dealers Bernheim-Jeune took the picture into stock. By about 1950 it belonged to André Meyer, a banker in New York, and it was sold at Sotheby's there in 1980. The collector Philippe Meyer gave it to the French state in 2000, keeping it at home until 2007, when it went to the Musée d'Orsay.