Place Saint-Augustin

Édouard Vuillard was commissioned to paint this city square in Paris, the Place Saint-Augustin, by a friend who lived nearby. This is one of several large decorative panels he made in distemper, a kind of paint made with water, chalk, pigment, and animal glue. Vuillard mastered the difficult medium, used in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries for theatrical backdrops, because he liked the matte effect of the paint when it dried.