Interior with a Screen
- Artist: Edouard Vuillard
- Date: 1909-1910 (circa)
- Medium: Oil (peinture à l’essence) on paper, laid on cardboard and panel
- Museum: The Courtauld Gallery
- Collection record: The Courtauld Gallery website
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About this artwork
This is "Interior with a Screen" by Edouard Vuillard. The work, dated 1909–1910, is oil on paper laid on cardboard and panel, a medium Vuillard favored for its immediacy. In the canvas, a woman lies in a moment of quiet repose inside the artist’s Paris studio. Unlike his earlier interiors bathed in lamplight, here Vuillard lets daylight spill across the model’s bare arm and thigh, creating a subtle play of shadow and warmth. The painting feels unposed, almost conversational, as if the sitter is simply breathing in the space.
Folding screens recur in Vuillard’s oeuvre; he made three of his own. This screen, rendered in bright, flat patches of color, does not immediately match the other three, suggesting a more experimental or symbolic use of the motif. The paper’s bare areas, left untouched, give the piece a sculptural quality, drawing attention to the edges where the figure meets the light.
Overall, the work is intimate, intimate, and full of quiet observation. It invites the viewer to linger in the soft glow, to feel the quiet energy of a simple, ordinary moment captured in vibrant, yet restrained, colors.
See it in person
Interior with a Screen hangs in The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House, London. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
