Self-Portrait with Waroquy

• Edouard Vuillard (1868–1940)
• 1889
• Oil on canvas
• Gift of Alex M. Lewyt, 1955 (55.173)

Edouard Vuillard painted this enigmatic self-portrait at the age of twenty-one. Dressed formally, he stands at the center of the composition holding a palette and brushes, symbols of his profession. His face, lit from one side and shadowed on the other, creates a striking contrast as he fixes the viewer with a penetrating gaze. Behind him appears a faintly rendered figure, identified as his friend Waroquy. At this time, Vuillard was moving away from the academic style he had learned toward a more evocative Symbolist approach.