The Potato Peeler
1893
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
About the artist
Artist
Ker-Xavier Roussel
Ker-Xavier Roussel was a French painter associated with Les Nabis.
See the richer artist page1893
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
The Potato Peeler is a 1893 by Ker-Xavier Roussel, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A woman sits at a table, peeling a potato with quiet focus. The room around her feels small and plain—just a chair, a bowl, and soft light. This print comes from a time when Roussel and his friends painted everyday life in Paris. They used flat colors and simple shapes to show moments most people ignored. The woman’s solitude feels intentional, like a snapshot of ordinary quiet. To see how other artists turned daily chores into art, look up *impasto*.
This print presents the type of domestic scene that Ker-Xavier Roussel and his Nabi colleagues favored during the 1890s. Artists in this circle used simplified forms and bold color to depict subject matter drawn from contemporary Paris, both domestic and public. Created in the year that Roussel married Marie, the sister of his close friend Édouard Vuillard, this lithograph may be a portrait of his new wife. The figure appears fully absorbed in her task, but also completely isolated from the outside world in starkly contrasting light and dark tones.
This print is the first of several in which Ker-Xavier Roussel collaborated with renowned master printmaker Edward Ancourt.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Ker-Xavier Roussel was a French painter associated with Les Nabis.
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