Château de Domecy-sur-le-Vault

Panels painted by Odilon Redon in 1901 for the dining room of the château

Portrait of Baroness Robert de Domecy (1900)

Baron Robert de Domecy (1867–1946) commissioned the artist Odilon Redon in 1899 to create 17 decorative panels for the dining room. He also commissioned Redon to do portraits of his wife and their daughter Jeanne,[1] two of which are in the collections of the Musée d'Orsay[2] and the Getty Museum[3] in California. Most of the paintings remained in the family collection until the 1960s.[4] Fifteen of the panels are located today in the Musée d'Orsay, which entered the museum in 1988.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Redon created large decorative works for private residences in the past. The panels he painted for the château de Domecy in 1900–1901 were his most radical compositions. They mark the transition from the ornamental to abstract painting. The landscape details do not show a specific place or space. Only details of trees, twigs with leaves, and budding flowers in an endless horizon can be seen. The colours used are mostly yellow, grey, brown and light blue. The influence of the Japanese painting style found on folding screens byōbu is discernible in his choice of colours and the rectangular proportions of most of the up to 2.5 metres high panels.