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Your galleryThe Red Room, Etretat
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Compare the child’s pink clothing near the floor with the red surfaces behind the seated woman, then look at the dark vertical edge dividing the large red areas.
Vallotton based this domestic scene on a personal photograph and painted it in oil on an artist’s board. Large areas of red give the room a strong structure around the seated woman and child. Their scale and placement distinguish a quiet household moment from the bold, almost diagrammatic arrangement of wall, furniture, and floor.
Oil on artist's board · 49.2 × 51.3 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Post-Impressionism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Red Room, Etretat
- Artist
- Félix Edouard Vallotton (Swiss, 1865–1925)
- Date
- 1899
- Medium
- Oil on artist's board
- Dimensions
- 49.2 × 51.3 cm (19 3/8 × 20 3/8 in.); Framed: 62.9 × 65.4 × 6.4 cm (24 3/4 × 25 3/4 × 2 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- Bequest of Mrs. Clive Runnells
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.