The stripe of wallpaper that dominates the left third of the composition is ambiguously related to the rest of the room, leaving the viewer to decide their orientation to the subject.

[2] The interplay of those beiges, browns, and reds with the stark, flat pink of the window (a Vuillard hallmark) fills that ambiguous space with intensity.

[3] The physical, though not emotional, diminutiveness, of these early works dissatisfied Vuillard, who used his connections to spend the rest of his lengthy career focusing on large decorative panels.

As an eager young student, he had helped form les Nabis, a group of progressive artists inspired by Gauguin and the Symbolists.

[5] The Seamstress has been on view in many locations, including Le Barc de Boutteville of Paris in 1893; the McLellan Galleries in Glasgow in 1920; the Lefevre Gallery in London in 1945; a traveling exhibition of Vuillard's intimate interiors that reached Houston, Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn in 1989-1990; and a comprehensive retrospective arranged by the National Gallery of Art in D.C., the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Galeries nationales du Grand Palais in Paris, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2003-2004.