Description
This painting is from a nine-panel decorative suite showing children playing in two of Paris’s most spacious parks: the Tuileries Gardens and the Bois de Boulogne. It depicts a game of hide-and-seek in which a girl conceals herself behind a tree. The stillness of the women resting on green chairs at the right is countered by children running at the left. Rather than a naturalist rendering of the subject, Vuillard combined rich colors with large, reductive forms arranged in decorative patterns that flow across the picture surface.
Provenance
Alexandre Natanson [1867-1936], Paris (1894-1929); (Natanson sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 16, 1929, lot 122, sold to Georges Bénard) (1929); Georges Bénard, Paris (1929-1933); (Bénard sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 9, 1933, lot 90, sold to Henri Blum) (1933); Henri Blum, Paris (1933-); (César de Hauke, New York, sold to Knoedler & Co.) (Until 1953); (Knoedler & Co., New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (1953); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1953-)
Accession Number
1953.212
Medium
distemper on fabric
Dimensions
Framed: 229.9 x 113 x 11.4 cm (90 1/2 x 44 1/2 x 4 1/2 in.); Unframed: 214.2 x 96.3 cm (84 5/16 x 37 15/16 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Gift of the Hanna Fund
