Vuillard-2012

6 Portrait of Madame Louis Viau, c. 1936

Pastel on paper 19 3 ⁄ 8 × 25 1 ⁄ 4

inches ( 49 . 2 × 64 . 1 cm)

Signed lower right

The sitter was the wife of Le Docteur Louis Viau ( 1868 – 1940 ) who was also painted by Vuillard in 1936 – 37 . (Collection Paris, Musée D’Orsay; Cogeval-Salomon XII- 129 ). That portrait was one of the last in Vuillard’s series of medical portraits, the most famous of which is The Surgeons (Cogeval Salomon IX- 226 ).

provenance Doctor Louis Viau, Paris Art market, Paris, 1948

Sale, Palais Galliera, Paris, June 18 , 1962 , lot 44 Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, March 27 , 1963 , lot 70 Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, December 12 , 1968 , lot 48 Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, June 14 , 1985 , lot 7 Sale, Sotheby’s, London, December 3 , 1986 , lot 420 Neffe-Degandt Fine Art, London. l i terature A. Salomon et G. Cogeval, Vuillard, Catalogue critique des peintures et pastels , Skira/Seuil, Wildenstein Institute, Paris, 2003 , vol. III, no. XII- 130 , p. 1523 .