Two Sisters-in-Law (Les deux belles-soeurs)

Édouard Vuillard

Color lithograph on China paper

Museum of Modern Art

Two Sisters-in-Law (Les deux belles-soeurs) is a color lithograph by French artist Édouard Vuillard, published in 1899 as part of his celebrated portfolio Paysages et intérieurs (Landscapes and Interiors), a suite of thirteen prints commissioned by the pioneering art dealer Ambroise Vollard and printed by master printer Auguste Clot in an edition of one hundred. The composition offers an intimate, hushed glimpse into a domestic interior, depicting Misia Natanson — Vuillard's artistic muse and patron — and her sister-in-law, actress Marthe Mellot, leaning against a piano; their faces are turned away from the viewer, lending the scene an air of quiet mystery. The work exemplifies Vuillard's Intimist sensibility within the Nabis movement, deploying flattened planes of color, rich decorative patterning, and compressed space — qualities shaped by his deep engagement with Japanese printmaking. Vuillard was a leading figure of Les Nabis, the Post-Impressionist avant-garde collective active in Paris from approximately 1889 to 1900, and Paysages et intérieurs is widely regarded as the pinnacle of his achievement as a printmaker.