Two Seamstresses in the Workroom

At first glance this looks like a scattering of blue dots and warm patches of color, but keep watching and two figures emerge, hunched over their sewing. Edouard Vuillard painted this workroom scene in 1893, showing seamstresses absorbed in their labor while patterned fabric spreads around them. The women almost dissolve into the speckled blue cloth, which is exactly what Vuillard intended. To him, people and their surroundings were threads in the same fabric, all woven into one flat and decorative surface.

Vuillard ran with a circle of young French painters in the 1890s who called themselves the Nabis, taking their name from a Hebrew word meaning "prophets." They wanted to leave behind lifelike painting and turn their scenes into bold patterns and simple shapes. Sewing rooms were no strange subject for Vuillard, since his mother made her living as a dressmaker and worked right inside their home. Growing up among fabric, needles, and busy women left a mark on nearly everything he later painted.

The charm of this small picture comes from its quietness. Nothing dramatic unfolds, just two people doing an everyday job, yet Vuillard transforms that plain moment into a shimmering field of dabs and hues where the figures wait to be found.