Vuillard, Intimate Theaters

Preview: written before the show opened

The painting on the poster, Le Déjeuner en famille of 1899, is also called the Hessel lunch, after Jos Hessel, Vuillard's only dealer. It stayed in the Hessel family until a 2016 bequest, and Orsay's catalogue lists it as not currently on display.

Vuillard designed programmes and sets for avant-garde symbolist plays in the 1890s, later painted boulevard-theatre personalities, and decorated two Paris theatres. The co-organiser, the Phillips Collection, counts about 70 paintings and 30 works on paper, plus theatre programmes. The curators' case is that his interiors are staged like sets: you look at a dining room and read it as a scene, with his family cast in the roles. If Sunday lunch with your relatives already runs like a three-act play, Vuillard got there first and kept the cast.

It's the first Vuillard show in France in almost 25 years, in the Level 0 exhibition space, open until 9.45pm on Thursdays. Reception areas are under renovation until summer 2028: check access conditions first.