The Coffee Pot

Vuillard typically painted from memory, using his sketches as aide-mémoire. “I have enough to keep me busy for years on end developing and making artworks out of everything I have in my sketchbooks and folders,” he once wrote in his journal. A coffeepot resembling the one in this study appears in several of his pictures of breakfast tables. Vuillard’s intention to use the sketch for a painting is evident from the color notations inscribed on the sheet: vert (green), written twice next to the spout, and jaune (yellow), by the detail of the handle at the bottom of the page.