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Visit to the purple room
(Viste dans la chambre violette)
(1899)
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
(46.0 × 55.0 cm)
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with funds donated by Alan and Mary-Louise Archibald Foundation, 2024
Gallery location
Late 19th & early 20th Century Paintings & Decorative Arts Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
A classic semi-abstracted work by the Nabi master Maurice Denis, this painting depicts the artist’s wife Marthe shortly after the birth of the couple’s daughter Bernadette in April 1899. The setting is the Denis family apartment in the Villa Montrouge in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The couple’s bedroom is decorated with a frieze painted by Denis in the style of the one he created for Siegfried Bing’s gallery Maison de l’Art Nouveau in 1895, inspired by the music of Robert Schumann. Seven painted panels from this bedroom now belong to the Maurice Denis Museum in Saint- Germain-en-Laye. Marthe is shown here being visited by Jeanne Mithouard, wife of the writer and politician Adrien Mithouard, accompanied by her young son Jacques.