?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
ÉDOUARD VUILLARD Chez le Chapelier (Lucie Belin)
Pencil on wove paper, circa 1915. 140x180 mm; 5½x7⅛ inches. Initialed in pencil, lower right recto.
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Mathias Chivot. This work will be included in the forthcoming volume of the Édouard Vuillard catalogue raisonné, currently being prepared by Mathias Chivot and the Vuillard Archives, Paris.
Provenance: Private collection, Connecticut.
Belin was an aspiring actress, who went by the surname "Ralph," and met Vuillard (1868-1940) in January 1914 while she worked as a dressmaker's apprentice. She became Vuillard's model, eventually his mistress, and the two met or corresponded almost daily. Vuillard painted and photographed several portraits of Belin, interrupted by Belin's working as a nurse during World War I. Vuillard made attempts to further Belin's theater career by introducing her to his circle, though there is no evidence that she was successful. Perhaps one of the most important women in Vuillard's life, he cared for Berlin when she fell ill in the 1920s and supported her financially until his death in 1940.
