The Poker Game

"Some great news that will really surprise you: I'm going to get married. I am marrying a lady I have known and appreciated for a long time, a friend, a widow with three children. She has enough means to support herself and her children, and with what I will be able to earn, we will manage very easily. And what's more, the family will take care of the children, and I am sure will be a powerful source of help to my career. They are important art dealers."

This is how, at the beginning of 1899, Félix Vallotton announces his marriage to Gabrielle Rodrigues-Henriques, the daughter of Alexandre Bernheim, a friend of Delacroix, Corot, and Courbet, who promoted Realists, Barbizon school paintings, and the first Impressionist and later Post-Impressionist painters. Along with his sons, he ran an art gallery and organized the first important exhibition of Vincent van Gogh paintings in Paris. Thanks to this marriage, he exhibited Vallotton also.

Up to 1903, Vallotton did many paintings of his wife and his children, as well as of the various relations of his wife. Here, Gabrielle is playing cards with her mother and her uncles. The painting has an unusual composition; Vallotton's wife is relegated to the background at an almost inaccessible distance. At this time, relations between Vallotton and his wife's family began to deteriorate. Moreover, it would not be long before the painter categorically refused to sell his paintings to his brothers-in-law. The distance in the painting meant the distance in real life. 

Have a great Sunday everyone! Don't forget to check the beautiful black and white world of Félix Vallotton’s prints!  <3

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