Femme au manchon

Painted in 1895, Femme au manchon forms part of a small series of colourful works created by Félix Vallotton examining the mode de vie on the streets of fin-de-siècle Paris. This theme provided Vallotton with almost continuous inspiration over the course of the last decade of the nineteenth century, emerging in his drawings, sketches, prints and paintings as lively crowd scenes, or as highly focused spotlights on individual characters as they make their way through the city. The present work falls into this second category, as the artist focuses on a fashionably dressed woman promenading down a typical Parisian thoroughfare. Vallotton takes care to detail each of the individual features of her elegant costume, from the large buttons on her jacket, to the distinctive shape of her hat, the bow that holds it in place, and the subtle hint of coloured silk inside the muff she carries. Indeed, one of the most striking details of the painting is the way her skirt folds into three sharply defined lines as she raises the hem to avoid treading on it. In this way, Vallotton makes the woman’s costume the central focus of his composition, distinguishing her as a member of the stylish bourgeoisie in the process, to whom fashion and clothing were inextricably linked with identity. However, while her outfit is highly distinct, the artist eschews any sense of individuality in his rendering of the woman’s facial features, instead casting her as a Parisian ‘type’, a representation of the numerous women who could be seen going about their business along the street on a daily basis.

The apparent spontaneity of the woman’s pose lends the scene a ‘snap-shot’ effect, as if it has been captured in an instant by a camera, catching the woman unaware as she strolls down the street. Like most of his fellow Nabi artists, the development of the hand-held Kodak camera in the 1890s led Vallotton to experiment increasingly with photography, using the technology to create source images which could be studied for final works. Most importantly, the camera opened his eye to new ways of observing the world – Vallotton’s photographs were often framed in highly particular ways, capturing scenes from unusual viewpoints and employing a sharp cropping technique to create a sense of movement beyond the edge of the image. Femme au manchon also reflects the influence of Japanese ukiyo-e prints, another popular source of inspiration for the Nabis, particularly in the contrast between the brightness of the woman’s clothing and the pale colouring of the background, in its simplification of form and the extreme flatness of the two-dimensional planes of unmediated colour. Shortly after its creation, Femme au manchon was purchased by the acclaimed art dealer Alexandre Bernheim, who had made a name for himself as an early advocate of the Barbizon School. Vallotton would later marry Alexandre’s daughter, Gabrielle, in 1901. The present work remained in the family’s collection for a number of years, passing to another of Alexandre’s daughters, Marguerite, after his death.