Fig. 6. The artwork is a quadrilateral with a shorter side. The edges were trimmed after completion. Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window (ca. 1899)

Fig. 7. Digital infrared image of the painting. The thin dark lines around the female figure are a charcoal underdrawing, which is indicated by arrows. Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window (ca. 1899)

Fig. 8. Detail showing contrast between vertical brushwork and short, slightly circular strokes of muted colors in the background, Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window (ca. 1899)

Fig. 9. Vuillard’s signature in black ink, Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window (ca. 1899)

Fig. 6. The artwork is a quadrilateral with a shorter side. The edges were trimmed after completion. Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window (ca. 1899)

Fig. 8. Detail showing contrast between vertical brushwork and short, slightly circular strokes of muted colors in the background, Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window (ca. 1899)

Fig. 9. Vuillard’s signature in black ink, Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window (ca. 1899)

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Edouard Vuillard, Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window, ca. 1899

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doi: 10.37764/78973.5.740
Artist	Edouard Vuillard, French, 1868–1940
Title	Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window
Object Date	ca. 1899
Alternate and Variant Titles	J. R. contre fenêtre
Medium	Oil on millboard
Dimensions (Unframed)	12 3/8 x 14 3/4 in. (31.4 x 37.5 cm)
Signature	Signed lower right: Vuillard
Inscription	Inscribed on verso: J. R. contre Fenêtre
Credit Line	The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Gift of Henry W. and Marion H. Bloch, 2015.13.28
Copyright	© 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Catalogue Entry

curatorial

Citation

Chicago:

Kenneth Brummel, “Edouard Vuillard, Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window, ca. 1899,” catalogue entry in French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.740.5407.

MLA:

Brummel, Kenneth. “Edouard Vuillard, Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window, ca. 1899,” catalogue entry. French Paintings and Pastels and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, edited by Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/78973.5.740.5407.

A quivering, out-of-focus composition made up of abstracted forms, Edouard Vuillard’s Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window is an ambiguous work full of indeterminacy. Perched precariously on the edge of a wood-framed armchair, a woman seated at a table before a vellum lamp rests her head on her left hand as she performs a task that the artist has purposefully concealed from the viewer. Fully absorbed in that invisible activity, she is depicted without discernible facial features. All one can distinguish is her elegant, turn-of-the-century brioche bun, her illuminated left cheek, her sumptuous fur collar, and her shimmering red dressing gown, which Vuillard, in true NabiNabis: Nabi is the Hebrew word for prophet. Founded by Paul Sérusier, the Nabis were a group of Post-Impressionist painters active in France from 1888 to around 1900. Utilizing a simplified style of thick, undulating contours and flat planes of vibrant color inspired by Synthetism, the Nabis rejected naturalistic depictions of reality and relied instead on metaphor and purely formal devices to evoke feelings and subject matter. An experimental group of painters, the Nabi created stage sets for Symbolist theatre productions and painted on unconventional supports such as velvet and cardboard. See also Synthetism. fashion, transforms into a sinuous shape that bends around a brown circle possibly representing the enlarged face of the chair’s right scroll arm. While the bundle of gray-green fabric in the basket on the table at left might offer a clue about who this enigmatic figure is and what she is doing, the splashes of white, pink, pale green, and yellow pigment on which she appears to focus resist all attempts at a stable interpretation. Pure painterly marks, they do not describe a recognizable object, nor do they shed any light on the woman’s identity or her hidden actions.

If identifying and analyzing the subject matter of Woman in a Red Dress are difficult exercises, so is determining the painting’s precise date of manufacture. Currently, there is no scholarly consensus on the date of this picture.¹The author wishes to thank Brigid M. Boyle for directing his attention to this lack of scholarly consensus. Brigid M. Boyle, NAMA, to Kenneth Brummel, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, October 12, 2023, NAMA curatorial files. Undated when it appeared at auction in Paris in 1977,²See La Dame rouge in Tableaux Modernes, Art Contemporain, Sculptures (Paris: Palais Galliéra, March 31, 1977), lot 126. the painting was dated ca. 1895–98 when it was included in an exhibition in the suburbs of New York in 1981.³Joseph J. Yorizzo, Madame in Her Boudoir, 1870–1940: Paintings, Sculpture, Graphics, Furnishings, exh. cat. (Greenvale, NY: C. W. Post Art Gallery, 1981), unpaginated. This date must have come from Wildenstein and Co., which owned the picture during the run of the exhibition. Wildenstein also assigned the date of ca. 1895–98 when they sold it to Marion (née Helzberg, 1931–2013) and Henry (1922–2019) Bloch, Shawnee Mission, KS, on July 14, 1983. Invoice from Wildenstein to Henry Bloch, August 17, 1983, NAMA curatorial files. While Antoine Salomon and Guy Cogeval assigned the date of ca. 1899 to the work in their 2003 catalogue raisonné of Vuillard’s paintings and pastels,⁴Antoine Salomon and Guy Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance: Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels (Milan: Skira, 2003), cat. no. VI-113, p. 1:532. Richard Brettell in 2007 proposed a date of 1899–1900,⁵Richard Brettell, entry for cat. no. 28, in Richard R. Brettell and Joachim Pissarro, Manet to Matisse: Impressionist Masters from the Marion and Henry Bloch Collection, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 142–45. which the Nelson-Atkins retained in a handbook published in 2016.⁶Catherine Futter et al., Bloch Galleries: Highlights from the Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2016), 117.

Fig. 1. Edouard Vuillard, *At the Revue Blanche (Portrait of Félix Fénéon)*, ca. 1896–1901, oil on paperboard, 18 1/4 x 22 5/8 in. (46.4 x 57.5 cm), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. The Hilla Rebay Collection, 41.725. © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

A late 1890s date is certainly viable. In At the Revue Blanche (Portrait of Félix Fénéon) (Fig. 1), a painting that the Guggenheim Museum in New York dates to ca. 1896–1901,⁷Arguing that this painting could “only have been painted before 1899, when the Belgian architect Henry Van de Velde redecorated La Revue Blanche offices from top to bottom,” the Vuillard catalogue raisonné dates it to 1896–98; Salomon and Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance, cat. no. VI-106, p. 1:527. It is worth noting, however, that Vuillard’s painting might be based on Félix Vallotton’s (Swiss, 1865–1925) very similar Félix Fénéon at the Revue Blanche (private collection) of 1896, making the appearance of La Revue Blanche’s office a moot point. The Guggenheim retains 1901 in their date range because of the inscription, possibly in the hand of Félix Fénéon, on the verso of the work’s paperboard support: “Edouard Vuillard / 1901 / A La revue blanche (Portrait de M. Félix Fénéon).” For a discussion of this inscription, see Angelica Zander Rudenstine, The Guggenheim Museum Collection: Paintings, 1880–1945 (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1976), cat. no. 250, p. 2:695–96. the eponymous art critic and anarchist sits on the edge of a chair and leans over a desk in a manner similar to the figure in Woman in a Red Dress. Although in the Guggenheim picture Fénéon bends his back far more dramatically than the woman in the Nelson-Atkins painting, he is likewise seated before a lamp and barely balanced on an armchair, creating a compelling visual link between the two pictures.⁸Interestingly, a sketch from a journal dated 1890 shows a man seated on a chair leaning over a desk in a pose similar to the figures depicted in the Guggenheim and Nelson-Atkins pictures. See Journal du peintre Édouard Vuillard, Ms 5396 (1), folio 25r, Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, Paris, https://bibnum.institutdefrance.fr/ark:/61562/bi24408. Another painting from the late 1890s that has a noteworthy formal relationship to Woman in a Red Dress is The Drawing Room (Fig. 2); it too shows a woman seated on an armchair in profile with her torso bent into a sensuous S-curve. Noting that both works were once owned by the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli (Italian, 1890–1973),⁹For the provenance of The Drawing Room, see Salomon and Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance, cat. no. VI-115, p. 1:533. Brettell, without evidence, claimed that this painting “was painted at the very same time” as the Nelson-Atkins picture.¹⁰Brettell and Pissarro, Manet to Matisse, 145.

Fig. 2. Edouard Vuillard, *The Drawing Room*, ca. 1896–99, oil on canvas, 18 1/8 x 21 1/4 in. (46 x 54 cm), private collection, New York. © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The circa 1899 date posited by Salomon and Cogeval is the most appealing. Two photographs by Vuillard dated 1899 and reproduced in the catalogue raisonné show the playwright Romain Coolus (pseudonym of René Max Weill, 1868–1952) seated before a lamp and leaning over a book, with his right elbow positioned on either a table or a desk as the palm of his right hand cups the side of his forehead (Fig. 3).¹¹See Salomon and Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance, 1:489 and 1:526. Eik Kahng assigns one of these photographs, which she titles Natanson Country House with Romain Coolus, the date of ca. 1899 and discusses its provocative relationship with Woman in Blue with Child (ca. 1899; Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, https://collections.glasgowmuseums.com/mwebcgi/mweb?request=record;id=166624;type=101); Eik Kahng, “Staged Moments in the Art of Edouard Vuillard,” in Dorothy Kosinski, ed., The Artist and the Camera: Degas to Picasso, exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 258–59. Knowing that Vuillard regularly reused the silhouettes and poses of the figures he photographed in his paintings,¹²Walking in the Vineyard (ca. 1897–99; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, https://collections.lacma.org/node/232711) is another nearly contemporaneous painting containing figures whose poses and silhouettes are drawn from Vuillard’s photographs. For a discussion of this work and its relationship to Vuillard’s photographs, see Gloria Groom, Beyond the Easel: Decorative Paintings by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, and Roussel, 1890–1930, exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), cat. no. 42, pp. 138 and 140. Titling the painting A Walk in the Vineyard, Groom in 2001 assigned it a date of 1899/1900. it is possible that the artist cited Coolus’s gesture in both Woman in a Red Dress and In Front of a Tapestry (Fig. 4), an 1899 painting that shows Thadée Natanson (French, 1868–1951), the publisher of La Revue Blanche, reading next to a yellow lampshade. His head in hand, Thadée is in the company of his wife Misia (née Godebska, Polish, 1872–1950), whose red gown and loosely tied brioche bun recall the woman in the Nelson-Atkins painting. Intriguingly, Misia Natanson bends over an unidentifiable project in her lap, perhaps some type of needlework, recalling the sewing basket and gray-green bundle of fabric in the Nelson-Atkins Woman in a Red Dress. Sewing, however, is a stock trope in Vuillard’s oeuvre, one many scholars believe Vuillard viewed as a metaphor for the act of painting itself.¹³An early articulation of this argument can be found in Max Kozloff, “Four Short Essays on Vuillard,” Artforum 10, no. 4 (December 1971): 65.

Fig. 3. Edouard Vuillard, *Romain Coolus with Misia and Thadée Natanson Beneath a Lamp*, 1899, photograph, Archives Vuillard

The reasoning behind Brettell’s 1899–1900 date is far from incontrovertible. Citing the words “J. R. contre Fenetre” inscribed on the verso of the Nelson-Atkins picture, Brettell felt it safe to assume that the woman portrayed was the opera singer Jeanne Raunay (née Richome, 1869–1942). Not only was the mezzo-soprano in Paris playing the role of Iphigenia in Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in December 1899; Vuillard actually painted a picture of her onstage in that role during one of her many critically acclaimed performances that winter (Fig. 5).¹⁴See Brettell and Pissarro, Manet to Matisse, 142. According to Pierre Guillard’s libretto, Iphigénie en Tauride debuted at the Théâtre de la Renaissance on December 7, 1899; Pierre Guillard, Iphigénie en Tauride: Tragédie lyrique en quatre actes (Paris: Librairie Théatrale, 1900), [3]. According to one music critic, Raunay “made all of Paris flock to the Théâtre de la Renaissance for months”; “Jeanne Raunay: An Artist,” Musical Courier 50, no. 3 (January 18, 1905): 11. Although Brettell was incorrect when he claimed that Jeanne Raunay is the only female figure with the initials J. R. depicted in Vuillard’s oeuvre—the actress Jane Renouardt (née Victorine Catharine Renouard) sat for two portraits in 1926–27¹⁵See Brettell and Pissarro, Manet to Matisse, 142. The author thanks Brigid M. Boyle for this observation; Boyle to Kenneth Brummel, October 12, 2023, NAMA curatorial files. For the paintings by Vuillard depicting Renouardt, see Salomon and Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance, cat. nos. XI-257 and XI-258, pp. 3:1439–40. Jane Renouardt (1890–1972) would have been just nine years old when Vuillard created the Nelson-Atkins painting.—he was right to give weight to the inscription on the verso of the painting, as its penmanship has a strong resemblance to the notes and entries in the artist’s journals and carnets (notebooks). Still, this does not necessarily prove that Raunay is the figure in Woman in a Red Dress. The artist held onto the Nelson-Atkins picture until his death in 1940, making it possible for him to have inscribed the words “J. R. contre Fenetre” long after its date of manufacture. Also, while it is tempting to compare the sinuous red shape formed by Raunay’s robe in Jeanne Raunay in “Iphigenia” (Fig. 5) to the gown of the figure in Woman in a Red Dress, one must remember that Vuillard regularly transformed figures’ torsos into curvilinear forms in his late 1890s works. The Drawing Room (see Fig. 2) is just one of several examples.

Fig. 5. Edouard Vuillard, *Jeanne Raunay in “Iphigenia”*, 1899, oil on board, 22 1/2 x 19 3/4 in. (57 x 50 cm), Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Gift in memory of Nicole Rory-Ellen, and Amanda Unger, 1981, 81.39. © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

One scholar suggested that Woman in a Red Dress “may, in fact, be a portrait,” either of Raunay or some other individual.¹⁶See the entry for Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. against a Window, in Futter et al., Bloch Galleries, 117. This raises a relevant and interesting possibility. According to Coolus, whom Vuillard photographed and painted on several occasions, the artist, when painting a portrait, would treat his sitter not as a distinct or isolated entity but as one of many objects in an environment that reflected their daily life, tastes, and preferences.¹⁷Romain Coolus, “Edouard Vuillard,” L’Art vivant, no. 221 (May 1938): 24. “Sa conception du portrait en est une conséquence directe. L’artiste lance sur l’individu qu’il va représenter un rayon particulier; mais cet individu n’est pour lui qu’un objet dans l’ensemble de ceux qui composent l’intimité à laquelle il appartient. Il se réfracte dans tout ce qui l’entoure; ses goûts et ses préférences sont inscrits dans les meubles qui lui sont familiers et dans tous les détails du décor où se déroule son existence” (His conception of portraiture is a direct consequence of this. The artist cast a particular light on the individual that he is going to represent; but this individual is for him only one object in the ensemble of those that make up the intimacy to which he belongs. It refracts into everything around it; his tastes and preferences are inscribed in the furniture with which he is familiar and in all the details of the décor in which his existence takes place). Translation by Kenneth Brummel. This is demonstrably the case in contemporaneous works such as the Guggenheim picture (see Fig. 1), which shows Fénéon, the editor-in-chief of La Revue Blanche, at his desk writing in the recognizable office spaces of the magazine,¹⁸It is worth noting that an inscription, possibly in Fénéon’s hand, on the verso of this painting calls the work “A La revue blanche (Portrait de M. Félix Fénéon).” See n. 7. and the Musée d’Orsay’s Félix Vallotton (ca. 1900), which portrays the Nabi painter seated in the corner of his studio flanked by works of art and wearing a blue bohemian jacket. Even though the subject of Jeanne Raunay in “Iphigenia” (see Fig. 5) is shrouded in fabric, it could also be classified as a portrait, as the diva’s profession is reflected both in her stage setting and in the chorus of actresses that surround her. In Woman in a Red Dress, however, the only available clues to the sitter’s identity are the basket with a bundle of cloth and the cluster of painted dabs that is the object of her rapt attention. Nothing in the composition obviously signifies or evokes Raunay or any other known individual, possibly making this painting an intimisteIntimisme: French for “Intimism.” A stylistic term used to describe the work of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century artists such as Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) and Edouard Vuillard (1868–1940), who painted domestic scenes with objects and people obscured by a mystical and highly suggestive ambiguity. Containing surface patterning and other decorative elements, these artists’ closely cropped and sometimes claustrophobic compositions offer fleeting views of psychologically charged spaces with palpable atmospheres. domestic scene and not, as some have assumed, a portrait.

Scholars will probably never know the exact date of Woman in a Red Dress or the identity of its mysterious figure. Perhaps this is by design. Vuillard was an associate and admirer of Stéphane Mallarmé, the symbolist poet who in 1891 famously stated that to name an object in a poem is to remove three-quarters of the reader’s aesthetic pleasure. “Suggesting” an object, on the other hand—“that is the dream.”¹⁹See Stéphane Mallarmé’s contribution to “Enquête sur l’évolution littéraire,” L’Echo de Paris 8, no. 2400 (March 14, 1891): 2. “Nommer un objet, c’est supprimer les trois quarts de la jouissance du poème qui est faite du bonheur de deviner peu à peu; le suggérer, voilà le rêve” (Naming an object eliminates three fourths of the enjoyment of the poem, which comes from the joy of gradually guessing: suggesting it, that is the dream). Translation by Kenneth Brummel. The experience one has when gazing at this work of art is certainly dream-like. With opaque, creamy yellow pigments articulating the shapes of the lampshade and the window, Vuillard visually collapses this painting’s foreground and background, as both forms appear to lie flat on the picture surface. His use of repeated commas, dashes, and dabs of thinned brown, taupe, and yellow paint to describe the floor, the diagonal table, and the wall at upper right creates the illusion of forms dissolving into a pulsating, decorative pattern. Mesmerized by these visual dynamics and optical ambiguities, the viewer begins to mimic the actions of this painting’s inscrutable woman, staring, as she does, at this suggestive picture’s bewildering matrix of abstracted, painterly marks that resist all attempts at naming and categorization.

Kenneth Brummel

April 2024

Notes

The author wishes to thank Brigid M. Boyle for directing his attention to this lack of scholarly consensus. Brigid M. Boyle, NAMA, to Kenneth Brummel, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, October 12, 2023, NAMA curatorial files.
See La Dame rouge in Tableaux Modernes, Art Contemporain, Sculptures (Paris: Palais Galliéra, March 31, 1977), lot 126.
Joseph J. Yorizzo, Madame in Her Boudoir, 1870–1940: Paintings, Sculpture, Graphics, Furnishings, exh. cat. (Greenvale, NY: C. W. Post Art Gallery, 1981), unpaginated. This date must have come from Wildenstein and Co., which owned the picture during the run of the exhibition. Wildenstein also assigned the date of ca. 1895–98 when they sold it to Marion (née Helzberg, 1931–2013) and Henry (1922–2019) Bloch, Shawnee Mission, KS, on July 14, 1983. Invoice from Wildenstein to Henry Bloch, August 17, 1983, NAMA curatorial files.
Antoine Salomon and Guy Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance: Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels (Milan: Skira, 2003), cat. no. VI-113, p. 1:532.
Richard Brettell, entry for cat. no. 28, in Richard R. Brettell and Joachim Pissarro, Manet to Matisse: Impressionist Masters from the Marion and Henry Bloch Collection, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 142–45.
Catherine Futter et al., Bloch Galleries: Highlights from the Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2016), 117.
Arguing that this painting could “only have been painted before 1899, when the Belgian architect Henry Van de Velde redecorated La Revue Blanche offices from top to bottom,” the Vuillard catalogue raisonné dates it to 1896–98; Salomon and Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance, cat. no. VI-106, p. 1:527. It is worth noting, however, that Vuillard’s painting might be based on Félix Vallotton’s (Swiss, 1865–1925) very similar Félix Fénéon at the Revue Blanche (private collection) of 1896, making the appearance of La Revue Blanche’s office a moot point. The Guggenheim retains 1901 in their date range because of the inscription, possibly in the hand of Félix Fénéon, on the verso of the work’s paperboard support: “Edouard Vuillard / 1901 / A La revue blanche (Portrait de M. Félix Fénéon).” For a discussion of this inscription, see Angelica Zander Rudenstine, The Guggenheim Museum Collection: Paintings, 1880–1945 (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1976), cat. no. 250, p. 2:695–96.
Interestingly, a sketch from a journal dated 1890 shows a man seated on a chair leaning over a desk in a pose similar to the figures depicted in the Guggenheim and Nelson-Atkins pictures. See Journal du peintre Édouard Vuillard, Ms 5396 (1), folio 25r, Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, Paris, https://bibnum.institutdefrance.fr/ark:/61562/bi24408.
For the provenance of The Drawing Room, see Salomon and Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance, cat. no. VI-115, p. 1:533.
Brettell and Pissarro, Manet to Matisse, 145.
See Salomon and Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance, 1:489 and 1:526. Eik Kahng assigns one of these photographs, which she titles Natanson Country House with Romain Coolus, the date of ca. 1899 and discusses its provocative relationship with Woman in Blue with Child (ca. 1899; Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow); Eik Kahng, “Staged Moments in the Art of Edouard Vuillard,” in Dorothy Kosinski, ed., The Artist and the Camera: Degas to Picasso, exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 258–59.
Walking in the Vineyard (ca. 1897–99; Los Angeles County Museum of Art) is another nearly contemporaneous painting containing figures whose poses and silhouettes are drawn from Vuillard’s photographs. For a discussion of this work and its relationship to Vuillard’s photographs, see Gloria Groom, Beyond the Easel: Decorative Paintings by Bonnard, Vuillard, Denis, and Roussel, 1890–1930, exh. cat. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), cat. no. 42, pp. 138 and 140. Titling the painting A Walk in the Vineyard, Groom in 2001 assigned it a date of 1899/1900.
An early articulation of this argument can be found in Max Kozloff, “Four Short Essays on Vuillard,” Artforum 10, no. 4 (December 1971): 65.
See Brettell and Pissarro, Manet to Matisse, 142. According to Pierre Guillard’s libretto, Iphigénie en Tauride debuted at the Théâtre de la Renaissance on December 7, 1899; Pierre Guillard, Iphigénie en Tauride: Tragédie lyrique en quatre actes (Paris: Librairie Théatrale, 1900), [3]. According to one music critic, Raunay “made all of Paris flock to the Théâtre de la Renaissance for months”; “Jeanne Raunay: An Artist,” Musical Courier 50, no. 3 (January 18, 1905): 11.
See Brettell and Pissarro, Manet to Matisse, 142. The author thanks Brigid M. Boyle for this observation; Boyle to Kenneth Brummel, October 12, 2023, NAMA curatorial files. For the paintings by Vuillard depicting Renouardt, see Salomon and Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance, cat. nos. XI-257 and XI-258, pp. 3:1439–40. Jane Renouardt (1890–1972) would have been just nine years old when Vuillard created the Nelson-Atkins painting.
See the entry for Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window, in Futter et al., Bloch Galleries, 117.
Romain Coolus, “Edouard Vuillard,” L’Art vivant, no. 221 (May 1938): 24. “Sa conception du portrait en est une conséquence directe. L’artiste lance sur l’individu qu’il va représenter un rayon particulier; mais cet individu n’est pour lui qu’un objet dans l’ensemble de ceux qui composent l’intimité à laquelle il appartient. Il se réfracte dans tout ce qui l’entoure; ses goûts et ses préférences sont inscrits dans les meubles qui lui sont familiers et dans tous les détails du décor où se déroule son existence” (His conception of portraiture is a direct consequence of this. The artist cast a particular light on the individual that he is going to represent; but this individual is for him only one object in the ensemble of those that make up the intimacy to which he belongs. It refracts into everything around it; his tastes and preferences are inscribed in the furniture with which he is familiar and in all the details of the décor in which his existence takes place). Translation by Kenneth Brummel.
It is worth noting that an inscription, possibly in Fénéon’s hand, on the verso of this painting calls the work “A La revue blanche (Portrait de M. Félix Fénéon).” See n. 7.
See Stéphane Mallarmé’s contribution to “Enquête sur l’évolution littéraire,” L’Echo de Paris 8, no. 2400 (March 14, 1891): 2. “Nommer un objet, c’est supprimer les trois quarts de la jouissance du poème qui est faite du bonheur de deviner peu à peu; le suggérer, voilà le rêve” (Naming an object eliminates three fourths of the enjoyment of the poem, which comes from the joy of gradually guessing: suggesting it, that is the dream). Translation by Kenneth Brummel.

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Technical Entry

conservation

Citation

Chicago:

Rachel Freeman, “Edouard Vuillard, Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window, ca. 1899,” technical entry in French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.740.2088.

MLA:

Freeman, Rachel. “Edouard Vuillard, Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window, ca. 1899,” technical entry. French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, edited by Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/78973.5.740.2088.

Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window offers the viewer the opportunity to explore Edouard Vuillard’s use of millboard as a support for his paintings. The material was the contributing factor in the final appearance of the artwork and a tool in achieving the Nabis’Nabis: Nabi is the Hebrew word for prophet. Founded by Paul Sérusier, the Nabis were a group of Post-Impressionist painters active in France from 1888 to around 1900. Utilizing a simplified style of thick, undulating contours and flat planes of vibrant color inspired by Synthetism, the Nabis rejected naturalistic depictions of reality and relied instead on metaphor and purely formal devices to evoke feelings and subject matter. An experimental group of painters, the Nabi created stage sets for Symbolist theatre productions and painted on unconventional supports such as velvet and cardboard. See also Synthetism. matte aesthetic.

While the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art had identified the primary support as cardboard, this term is misleading as it suggests a thin and flexible material, similar to a playing card.¹ⁱSee the definition for board in E. J. Labarre, A Dictionary of Paper and Paper-Making Terms (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets and Zeitlinger, 1937), 208–09. Furthermore, the term does not identify the method of manufacture, structure, or composition of the board. Specifically, Vuillard used a 4-5 mm thick, brown-gray millboard with a laminate structure. Millboards were commonly used as a rigid packing material, and they typically contained recycled materials or materials that were unsuitable for use in medium-quality or fine papers.

Visual examination of the support for Woman in a Red Dress reveals the presence of cheap recycled paper, chips of wood, and poorly processed fabric from a paper mill beater. This list of materials is very similar to the components of millboard listed in A Dictionary of Paper and Paper-Making Terms by E. J. Labarre.²Labarre, A Dictionary of Paper and Paper-Making Terms, 174. The board dimensions do not correspond to standard sizesstandard-format supports: Commercially prepared supports available through art suppliers, which gained popularity in the nineteenth century during the industrialization of art materials. Available in three formats figure (portrait), paysage (landscape), and marine (marine), these were numbered 1 through 120 to indicate their size. For each numbered size, marine and paysage had two options available: a larger format (haute) and smaller (basse) format. for papers prepared for oil paint and listed in colormen’sartist supplier(s): Also called colormen and color merchants. Artist suppliers prepared materials for artists. This tradition dates back to the Medieval period, but the industrialization of the nineteenth century increased their commerce. It was during this time that ready-made paints in tubes, commercially prepared canvases, and standard-format supports were available to artists for sale through these suppliers. It is sometimes possible to identify the supplier from stamps or labels found on the reverse of the artwork (see canvas stamp). catalogues,³In researching this technical entry, two colormen’s catalogues were consulted for the dimensions of paper and canvas sold for oil painting: Fabrique de Couleurs et Vernis, Toiles à Peindre, Carmin, Laques, Jaunes de Chrome de Spooner, Couleurs en Tablettes et en Pastilles, Pastels, et Généralment Tout Ce Qui Concerne la Peinture et les Arts, Encres Noires et de Couleurs Pour la Typograpie et la Lithographie, Fabrique à Grenelle (Paris: Le Franc, 1862) and Catalogue Général Illustré, Farbrique de Couleurs Fines et matériel pour l’aquarelle, la gouache, le dessin, le modelage, le peinture à l’huile, et la peinture sur porcelaine (Paris: Bourgeois Ainé, January 1888). suggesting that Vuillard may have sourced his board from his mother’s dressmaking shop.⁴Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutynski and H. Travers Newton, Jr. “Absorbent grounds and the matt aesthetic in Post-Impressionist Painting” in Painting Techniques: History, Materials and Studio Practice; Contributions to the Dublin Congress, 7–11 September 1998, ed. Ashok Roy and Perry Smith (London: International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, 1998), 238. Brush marks extend beyond the edges of the board, an indication that the board was trimmed to size after the composition was completed. The cuts are irregular, and edges of the board are rough due to the difficulty of trimming the fibrous, tough board with a dull blade. The blade dragged media into the cuts, did not cut all the way through the board, and twisted when it encountered inclusions (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6. The artwork is a quadrilateral with a shorter side. The edges were trimmed after completion. *Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window* (ca. 1899)

Vuillard did not coat the millboard with a groundground layer: An opaque preparatory layer applied to the support, either commercially or by the artist, to prevent absorption of the paint into the canvas or panel. See also priming layer. or other preparatory layer; instead all media was applied directly to the paper surface. Vuillard began the composition with a light sketch in charcoal. Charcoal lines are most visible around the figure (Fig. 7). Because the surface of the board is rough, there are skips in both charcoal marks and oil paint strokes.

Fig. 7. Digital infrared image of the painting. The thin dark lines around the female figure are a charcoal underdrawing, which is indicated by arrows. *Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window* (ca. 1899)

As referenced in the final paragraph of Kenneth Brummel’s curatorial entry, Vuillard used a variety of brushstrokes in the painting. Vertical brushstrokes, created by small round brushes with short stiff bristles, define the planes of the table. Alternating ocher and brown strokes describe the wall behind J. R. The window is framed in both horizontal and vertical strokes. Red, green, lavender-gray, white, and a dark blue are daubed around the orange and red vertical brushwork in the background. The red dress was painted with a flat brush, and opaque paint describes the contours of the woman’s form. Other notable areas of opaque color application are the creamy yellow of the lampshade and window. Both forms are defined by vertical brushstrokes (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8. Detail showing contrast between vertical brushwork and short, slightly circular strokes of muted colors in the background, *Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window* (ca. 1899)

The color of the millboard provides a mid-tone for the composition. The poor-quality components of the board have darkened with time and exposure to light, likely causing the image to appear less luminous than when it was first executed.⁵See commentary in Jirat-Wasiutynski and Newton “Absorbent Grounds and the Matt Aesthetic in Post-Impressionist Painting,” 238. The millboard also has a profound effect on the gloss of the oil paint. Because the oil medium soaked into the porous board, thinly painted passages such as the wall behind J. R. and parts of the table are matte. The more heavily applied paint, as in areas of the dress, have a slight gloss as they are richer in medium. The painting is not varnished.

A late addition to the composition is the artist’s signature. Located in the lower left corner, it reads “E Vuillard.” It appears to have been applied with a pen, and surprisingly, the ink sits on top of the paint surface (Fig. 9). This is a possible indication that it was applied after the underlying paint was completely cured.

Fig. 9. Vuillard’s signature in black ink, *Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window* (ca. 1899)

Millboard is not a stable material, and the oil medium likely accelerated its degradation and has caused the painting to appear slightly darker than when it was new. Some areas, such as at upper right, are slightly lighter in color than in the interior. These areas are normally covered by the frame rebaterebate (or rabbet): A groove on the inside of a frame to hold the glass (glazing), mount, and artwork. and are thus protected from light which can alter paint colors and cause paper materials to yellow or darken. The millboard has a concave warp of up to one-fourth of an inch in some areas, a result of insufficient support or lack of a backing board. Because the furnishfurnish: in paper making, furnish refers to the fibers that compose the paper as well as to the mixture of fibers and water that eventually form the paper sheet. formed clumps during sheet formation, there are losses along the perimeter. The artwork has been treated by multiple hands. The most recent intervention was a frame retrofit so that the artwork could be safely accommodated without exacerbating the concave deformation.⁶Nancy Heugh, “French Painting Catalogue Project Technical Examination and Condition Report,” January–October 2016, NAMA conservation file, no. 2015.13.28.

Rachel Freeman

October 2024

Notes

See the definition for board in E. J. Labarre, A Dictionary of Paper and Paper-Making Terms (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets and Zeitlinger, 1937), 208–09.
Labarre, A Dictionary of Paper and Paper-Making Terms, 174.
In researching this technical entry, two colormen’s catalogues were consulted for the dimensions of paper and canvas sold for oil painting: Fabrique de Couleurs et Vernis, Toiles à Peindre, Carmin, Laques, Jaunes de Chrome de Spooner, Couleurs en Tablettes et en Pastilles, Pastels, et Généralment Tout Ce Qui Concerne la Peinture et les Arts, Encres Noires et de Couleurs Pour la Typograpie et la Lithographie, Fabrique à Grenelle (Paris: Le Franc, 1862) and Catalogue Général Illustré, Farbrique de Couleurs Fines et matériel pour l’aquarelle, la gouache, le dessin, le modelage, le peinture à l’huile, et la peinture sur porcelaine (Paris: Bourgeois Ainé, January 1888).
Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutynski and H. Travers Newton, Jr., “Absorbent Grounds and the Matt Aesthetic in Post-Impressionist Painting,” in Painting Techniques: History, Materials and Studio Practice; Contributions to the Dublin Congress, 7–11 September 1998, ed. Ashok Roy and Perry Smith (London: International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, 1998), 238.
See commentary in Jirat-Wasiutynski and Newton, “Absorbent Grounds and the Matt Aesthetic in Post-Impressionist Painting,” 238.
Nancy Heugh, “French Painting Catalogue Project Technical Examination and Condition Report,” January–October 2016, NAMA conservation file, no. 2015.13.28.

Documentation

Citation

Chicago:

Brigid M. Boyle, “Edouard Vuillard, Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window, ca. 1899,” documentation in French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.740.4033.

MLA:

Boyle, Brigid M. “Edouard Vuillard, Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window, ca. 1899,” documentation. French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, edited by Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/78973.5.740.4033.

Provenance

provenance

Citation

Chicago:

MLA:

The artist (1869–1940), Paris, ca. 1899–June 21, 1940;

Probably inherited by his brother-in-law, Ker-Xavier Roussel (1867–1944), 1940–June 6, 1944;

Probably inherited by his daughter, Annette Salomon (née Roussel, 1898–1968), or his son, Jacques Prosper Roussel (1885–1985), 1944 [1];

Elsa Schiaparelli (1890–1973), Paris, by November 13, 1973 [2];

To her daughter, Maria-Luisa-Yvonne Radha, Marchesa Cacciapuoti di Giugliano (née de Wendt de Kerlor, 1920–ca. 2018), Paris, by 1973 [3];

Purchased at Tableaux Modernes, Art Contemporain, Sculptures, Palais Galliéra, Paris, March 31, 1977, lot 126, La Dame rouge, by Wildenstein and Co., New York, 1977–July 14, 1983 [4];

Purchased from Wildenstein by Marion (née Helzberg, 1931–2013) and Henry (1922–2019) Bloch, Shawnee Mission, KS, 1983–June 15, 2015;

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2015.

Notes

[1] Per Mathias Chivot, author of a forthcoming supplement to the Vuillard catalogue raisonné, his research dossier on Women in a Red Dress indicates that Schiaparelli probably purchased this painting either directly from Vuillard or from the artist’s niece or nephew, Annette Salomon or Jacques Roussel. See email from Mathias Chivot, independent scholar, to Brigid M. Boyle, NAMA, October 12, 2023, NAMA curatorial files.

[2] Information from Wildenstein and Co., Inc. invoice for Henry W. Bloch, August 17, 1983, NAMA curatorial files.

[3] Born Maria-Luisa-Yvonne Radha de Wendt de Kerlor, this constituent was nicknamed “Gogo” from a young age and took her mother’s last name after her parents divorced in 1924, such that she was known for much of her life as Gogo Schiaparelli. She was married twice, first to American diplomat Robert Lawrence Berenson (1914–1965) and later to Neapolitan nobleman Gino Cacciapuoti di Giugliano (1916–1990).

[4] See email from Joseph Baillio, Wildenstein and Co., Inc, to MacKenzie Mallon, NAMA, May 4, 2015, NAMA curatorial files. The seller of lot 126 was very likely Maria-Luisa-Yvonne Radha, Marchesa Cacciapuoti di Giugliano.

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Exhibitions

Citation

Chicago:

MLA:

Madame in Her Boudoir, 1870–1940: Paintings, Sculpture, Graphics, Furnishings, C. W. Post Art Gallery, C. W. Post Center of Long Island University, Greenvale, New York, October 4–November 20, 1981, unnumbered, as La Dame rouge.

Manet to Matisse: Impressionist Masters from the Marion and Henry Bloch Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 9–September 9, 2007, no. 28, as Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. contre fenêtre.

Painters and Paper: Bloch Works on Paper, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 20, 2017–March 11, 2018, no cat.

References

references

Citation

Chicago:

MLA:

Tableaux Modernes, Art Contemporain, Sculptures (Paris: Palais Galliéra, March 31, 1977), unpaginated, (repro.), as La Dame rouge.

Madame in Her Boudoir, 1870–1940: Paintings, Sculpture, Graphics, Furnishings, exh. cat. (Greenvale, NY: C. W. Post Art Gallery, 1981), unpaginated, (repro.), as La Dame rouge.

Donald Hoffmann, “Eileen Jagoda’s lyrical collages suffer from formless tenor,” Kansas City Star 105, no. 140 (March 3, 1985): 6F.

Antoine Salomon and Guy Cogeval, Vuillard, Le Regard innombrable: Catalogue critique des peintures et pastels (Paris: Wildenstein Institute, 2003), no. VI-113, pp. 1:532, 3:1701, 1715, 1726, and 1729, (repro.), as Femme en robe rouge.

Antoine Salomon and Guy Cogeval, Vuillard, The Inexhaustible Glance: Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels (Milan: Skira, 2003), no. VI-113, pp. 1:532, 3:1712, 1715, 1726, and 1729, (repro.), as Woman in a Red Dress.

Richard R. Brettell and Joachim Pissarro, Manet to Matisse: Impressionist Masters from the Marion and Henry Bloch Collection, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2007), 10, 142–45, 162, (repro.), as Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. contre fenêtre.

Alice Thorson, “A Tiny Renoir Began Impressive Obsession,” Kansas City Star 127, no. 269 (June 3, 2007): E4–E5.

Alice Thorson, “Blochs add to Nelson treasures,” Kansas City Star 130, no. 141 (February 5, 2010): A1, A8.

Carol Vogel, “O! Say, You Can Bid on a Johns,” New York Times 159, no. 54,942 (February 5, 2010): C26.

Alice Thorson, “Gift will leave lasting impression,” Kansas City Star 130, no. 143 (February 7, 2010): G1–G2.

Thomas M. Bloch, Many Happy Returns: The Story of Henry Bloch, America’s Tax Man (Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, 2011), 174–75.

Diane Stafford, “Bloch gift to go for Nelson upgrade,” Kansas City Star 135, no. 203 (April 8, 2015): A1, A8.

“Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art officially accessions Bloch Impressionist masterpieces,” Artdaily.org (July 25, 2015): http://artdaily.com/news/80246/Nelson-Atkins-Museum-of-Art-officially-accessions-Bloch-Impressionist-masterpieces.

Julie Paulais, “Le Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art reçoit des tableaux impressionnistes en échange de leurs répliques,” Le Journal des arts (July 30, 2015): https://www.lejournaldesarts.fr/patrimoine/le-nelson-atkins-museum-art-recoit-des-tableaux-impressionnistes-en-echange-de-leurs.

Josh Niland, “The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Acquires a Renowned Collection of Impressionist and Postimpressionist Art,” architecturaldigest.com (July 31, 2015): https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/nelson-atkins-museum-accessions-bloch-art-collection.

Nancy Staab, “Van Gogh is a Go!” 435: Kansas City’s Magazine (September 2015): 76.

“Nelson-Atkins to unveil renovated Bloch Galleries of European Art in winter 2017,” Artdaily.org (July 20, 2016): http://artdaily.com/news/88852/Nelson-Atkins-to-unveil-renovated-Bloch-Galleries-of-European-Art-in-winter-2017.

“Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art celebrates generosity of Henry Bloch with new acquisition,” Artdaily.org (October 18, 2016): https://artdaily.cc/news/90923/Nelson-Atkins-Museum-of-Art-celebrates-generosity-of-Henry-Bloch-with-new-acquisition#.XnKATqhKiUk.

Catherine Futter et al., Bloch Galleries: Highlights from the Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2016), 117, (repro.), as Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window.

Kelly Crow, “Museum Rewards Donor with Fake Art to Hang at Home,” Wall Street Journal (January 25, 2017): https://www.wsj.com/articles/museum-rewards-donor-with-fake-art-to-hang-at-home-1485370768.

David Frese, “Bloch savors paintings in redone galleries,” Kansas City Star (February 25, 2017): 1A, 14A.

Albert Hecht, “Henry Bloch’s Masterpieces Collection to Go On Display at Nelson-Atkins Museum,” Jewish Business News (February 26, 2017): http://jewishbusinessnews.com/2017/02/26/henry-bloch-masterpieces-collection/.

David Frese, “A collection of stories,” and “Inside the Bloch Galleries: An interactive experience,” Kansas City Star 137, no. 169 (March 5, 2017): 1D, 5D, (repro.), as Woman in a Red Dress or J. R. Against a Window.

“Editorial: Thank you, Henry and Marion Bloch,” Kansas City Star (March 7, 2017), http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article137040948.html [repr., in “Thank you, Henry and Marion Bloch,” Kansas City Star 137, no. 172 (March 8, 2017): 16A].

Hampton Stevens, “(Not Actually) 12 Things To Do During The Big 12 Tournament,” Flatland: KCPT’s Digital Magazine (March 9, 2017): http://www.flatlandkc.org/arts-culture/sports/not-actually-12-big-12-tournament/

Laura Spencer, “The Nelson-Atkins’ Bloch Galleries Feature Old Masterworks and New Technology,” KCUR (March 10, 2017): http://kcur.org/post/nelson-atkins-bloch-galleries-feature-old-masterworks-and-new-technology#stream/0

Victoria Stapley-Brown, “Nelson-Atkins Museum’s new European art galleries come with a ‘love story,’” Art Newspaper (March 10, 2017): http://theartnewspaper.com/news/museums/nelson-atkins-museum-s-new-european-art-galleries-come-with-a-love-story/

Harry Bellet, “Don du ciel pour le Musée Nelson-Atkins,” Le Monde (March 13, 2017): http://www.lemonde.fr/arts/article/2017/03/13/don-du-ciel-pour-le-musee-nelson-atkins_5093543_1655012.html

Menachem Wecker, “Jewish Philanthropist Establishes Kansas City as Cultural Mecca,” Forward (March 14, 2017): http://forward.com/culture/365264/jewish-philanthropist-establishes-kansas-city-as-cultural-mecca/ [repr., in Menachem Wecker, “Kansas City Collection Is A Chip Off the Old Bloch,” Forward (March 17, 2017): 20–22].

Juliet Helmke, “The Bloch Collection Takes up Residence in Kansas City’s Nelson Atkins Museum,” Blouin ArtInfo International (March 15, 2017): http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/2005267/the-bloch-collection-takes-up-residence-in-kansas-citys?utm_source=Blouin+Artinfo+Newsletters&utm_campaign=a2555adf27-Daily+Digest+03.16.2017+-+8+AM&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_df23dbd3c6-a2555adf27-83695841.

Louise Nicholson, “How Kansas City got its magnificent museum,” Apollo: The International Art Magazine (April 7, 2017): https://www.apollo-magazine.com/how-kansas-city-got-its-magnificent-museum/.

Lilly Wei, “Julián Zugazagoitia: ‘Museums should generate interest and open a door that leads to further learning,’” Studio International (August 21, 2017): http://studiointernational.com/index.php/julian-zugazagoitia-director-nelson-atkins-museum-of-art-kansas-city-interview.

Robert D. Hershey Jr., “Henry Bloch, H&R Block’s cofounder, dies at 96,” Boston Globe (April 23, 2019): https://www3.bostonglobe.com/metro/obituaries/2019/04/23/henry-bloch-block-cofounder/?arc404=true.

Robert D. Hershey Jr., “Henry W. Bloch, Tax-Preparation Pioneer (and Pitchman), Is Dead at 96,” New York Times (April 23, 2019): https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/obituaries/henry-w-bloch-dead.html.

Megan McDonough, “Henry Bloch, whose H&R Block became world’s largest tax-services provider, dies at 96,” Washington Post (April 23, 2019): https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/henry-bloch-whose-handr-block-became-worlds-largest-tax-services-provider-dies-at-96/2019/04/23/19e95a90-65f8-11e9-a1b6-b29b90efa879_story.html.

Claire Selvin, “Henry Wollman Bloch, Collector and Prominent Benefactor of Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Is Dead at 96,” ArtNews (April 23, 2019): http://www.artnews.com/2019/04/23/henry-bloch-dead-96/.

Eric Adler and Joyce Smith, “Henry Bloch, co-founder of H&R Block, dies at 96,” Kansas City Star 139, no. 219 (April 24, 2019): 1A, 2A.

“Henry Wollman Bloch (1922–2019),” Artforum (April 24, 2019): https://www.artforum.com/news/henry-wollman-bloch-1922-2019-79547.

Frank Morris, “Henry Bloch, Co-Founder Of H&R Block, Dies At 96,” NPR (April 24, 2019): https://www.npr.org/2019/04/24/716641448/henry-bloch-co-founder-of-h-r-block-dies-at-96.

Ignacio Villarreal, “Nelson-Atkins mourns loss of Henry Bloch,” ArtDaily.org (April 24, 2019): http://artdaily.com/news/113035/Nelson-Atkins-mourns-loss-of-Henry-Bloch#.XMB76qR7laQ.

Eric Adler and Joyce Smith, “H&R Block co-founder, philanthropist Bloch dies,” Cass County Democrat Missourian 140, no. 29 (April 26, 2019): 1A.

Eric Adler and Joyce Smith, “KC businessman and philanthropist Henry Bloch dies,” Lee’s Summit Journal 132, no. 79 (April 26, 2019): 1A.

Luke Nozicka, “Family and friends remember Henry Bloch of H&R Block,” Kansas City Star 139, no. 225 (April 30, 2019): 4A [repr., in Luke Nozicka, “Family and friends remember Henry Bloch of H&R Block,” Kansas City Star 139, no. 228 (May 3, 2019): 3A].

Eric Adler, “Sold for $3.25 million, Bloch’s home in Mission Hills may be torn down,” Kansas City Star 141, no. 90 (December 16, 2020): 2A.

Kristie C. Wolferman, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A History (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2020), 345.

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Site Title: French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

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Edouard Vuillard, Woman in a Red Dress, or J. R. Against a Window, ca. 1899

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