Female Nude - Claire Cala

c. 1909-1910
Pencil on paper
141 × 83 mm

Monogrammed (lower right): "E.V."

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Provenance:

Jill Newhouse Gallery, New York

Barry Humphries (1934-2023) Collection, Sydney

Sale at Leonard Joel Auctions, Woollhara, Barry Humphries: Artist and Collector, 3 June 2025, lot 65​

​Between 1909 and 1910, Édouard Vuillard produced a small but remarkable group of studies of the nude on paper, conceived as independent works and used to explore volume, compressed space, and bodily tension through unconventional viewpoints. These works belong to a moment when Vuillard was moving away from the flat, decorative language associated with his Nabi years and developing a more tactile and sensuous engagement with the human figure.

The model for our Nude is Claire Cala, who posed regularly for Vuillard between May 1909 and November 1910. She is one of the rare models who posed for Vuillard whose identity is known, and she inspired some of the artist’s most sensuous nude studies. Contemporary accounts suggest that Vuillard was at once subtly captivated by her and frequently exasperated by her habitual lateness for posing sessions. 

On our sheet taken from a sketchbook, Vuillard adopts an elevated, oblique viewpoint that departs markedly from traditional approaches to the nude. Seen from slightly above, the reclining female figure is rendered in a manner that compresses depth and unsettles the conventional hierarchy of limbs and torso. Rather than fixing the figure within a single contour, Vuillard traces a process of continual adjustment, responding to subtle shifts in balance and torsion. The viewpoint itself functions as an active compositional device, contributing to the underlying tension that animates the figure.

In our Female Nude, Vuillard eschews exaggeration in favour of a tantalising, understated sensuality. Neither an academic study nor a fully resolved composition, the Female Nude reflects his interest in the body as a mutable, living presence, explored through inventive viewpoints and a deliberately non-hierarchical mode of observation.