The Thread, 1893
Oil on canvas, 16 3/8 x 13 1/8 in. (41.6 x 33.3 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, B.A. 1929
1983.7.16
©2004 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
While a student at the Académie Julian in Paris, the French painter Vuillard met the artists Pierre Bonnard, Paul Sérusier, and Maurice Denis, with whom he formed the innovative group of the Nabis (the Hebrew word for prophet). The Nabis shared an interest in decoration and design, and together they developed a style characterized by flat areas of color and heavily outlined surface patterns. During the 1890s Vuillard become known for intimate paintings of quiet bourgeois interiors. In The Thread, women sew next to a table in a space suffused with an atmosphere of serenity and absorption. Still, certain ambiguities, such as the abrupt cropping of the third figure next to the frame, or an oddly placed chairback, render the painting spatially tense. The large portrait of a man, hung at an odd angle, looms incongruously over the intimate gathering.
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