Natanson’s wife, Misia, known as the “muse of the review,” was the adorable sparkling favorite model of the Nabis. The Natanson’s Paris flat, filled with books and paintings, became a rendezvous for the city’s intellectual, cultural, and artistic elite. Woman in a Striped Dress (Fig. 3) depicts a densely decorated interior where two women are arranging bouquets of chrysanthemums. It was originally one of a set of five paintings owned by the Natansons and shows the couple’s aesthetic interests (English Arts and Crafts and Japonisme). The merging of figures and ground and the rich ambiguity of the whole make this an icon of the Nabi period.

By 1896 the Nabi movement had already begun to fall apart, and although the new century would bring a bevy of new art movements (Postimpressionism, Fauvism, Cubism and Abstraction), Vuillard chose to perfect his own artistic statement. Newly invented photography was of great interest to him, and he used it widely as studies for his complex domestic interiors that revealed the personality and interests of his subjects.

Vuillard, as well as Bonnard and Renoir, was especially smitten with Misia and painted her in a multitude of settings—in Paris and also at the Natanson’s weekend retreats—La Grangette at Valvins, near Fontainebleau, and Le Relais at Villeneuve sur Yonne. In Misia and Vallotton at Villeneuve, 1899 (Fig. 4), she occupies front and center, with the painter Félix Vallotton in the background, and Thadée, to the left, barely in the scene. Misia’s flowing checkered dress, the paintings, and the vase of flowers against the floral wallpaper create a riot of color and pattern.

Thadée, an enthusiastic dealer as well as a friend, had been the first to recognize Vuillard’s unique talent as he integrated complex patterned backgrounds with the human figure, suggesting that all objects were of equal value. He began promoting the artist among his friends and family, helping to build Vuillard’s reputation through the sale of his intimate portraits, as well as his large-scale vertical panel décorations.

Vuillard’s relationship with the Natanson’s ended around 1904. After La Revue Blanche assumed a pro-Dreyfus stand in the court case that divided France, anti-Semitic feeling forced the magazine to fold. The Natanson marriage, already on the rocks, ended in divorce. Soon after, Vuillard met the tempestuous Lucie Hessel, wife of Jos Hessel, the art dealer associated with the prestigious family gallery of Bernheim-Jeune. The gallery began promoting Vuillard after 1900, including him in thirty-two group shows at Bernheim-Jeune and five solo exhibitions during his lifetime.

Lucie (Lucy) Hessel became an inspiration for Vuillard, a subject for his paintings, and a stabilizing force in his life. They were constant companions, linked socially for nearly forty years, their relationship accepted by Jos. Lucy Hessel Reading (Fig. 6) places her in profile, quietly reading at a desk beside her bed, not a customary setting for a female portrait. It certainly reveals the closeness of his relationship with Lucy, as he shows her within her private domain. Here, Vuillard employs one of his favorite devices: the mirror at upper left reflects an open window and the garden beyond. The wealthy circle of which Lucy was a part, included the beautiful Marcelle Aron (Fig. 7), Lucy’s first cousin, dear friend, and daughter of a wealthy Jewish banker. Aron was also the second wife of Vuillard’s friend Tristan Bernard, further illustrating the inspiration Vuillard received from friends and patrons whose support became inseparable from the artist’s achievements.