The Ham
Felix Vallotton's still life of a glazed ham, rendered with lacquered light and deep shadow. On a wall it gives a dining room weight, warmth, and a certain dry humour.
From$24900to $699.00Vallotton Paints Dinner Before Anyone Sits
The table is set and the room is empty. Vallotton withholds the guests, the hands, the occasion. What remains is the ham itself, pale bone jutting from the cut end, skin glazed so taut it reads like lacquer. A carving knife lies across the cloth. Fruit waits at the edge of the light. The shadow behind sits deep and flat, pressing the whole arrangement forward. Everything on the table is ready. Nobody has arrived. That absence is the painting's engine, and it keeps the image from ever feeling like a simple food study.
Vallotton built his reputation in Paris among the Nabis, the group that flattened space and treated a picture as a surface first, a window second. He was the Swiss outsider of the circle, known for hard edges and a cool, unsentimental eye. Late in his career he returned to still life with the same discipline he brought to his interiors and his sharp-edged nudes. The Ham belongs to that late run, where ordinary domestic objects get the monumental treatment usually reserved for portraits. He paints meat the way other painters paint a face.
Still Life After the Nabis
The Nabis worked in the wake of Gauguin, rejecting naturalistic depth in favour of bold flat colour and deliberate composition. Vallotton joined them in the early 1890s alongside Bonnard and Vuillard, and his woodcuts from that period made his name. Where his colleagues leaned soft and intimate, Vallotton stayed severe. His still lifes carry that severity. The background does not recede, it blocks. Objects sit in staged isolation, lit like actors. The tradition he draws on is the Spanish one, Zurbaran and Goya, where a single object on a table becomes an event rather than a decoration.
What holds attention here is the light. The ham is the brightest thing in the picture, its skin catching highlights with the precision of polished wood, and everything else is arranged to make that glow land. The knife, the fruit, the cloth all defer to it. Living with the image is a different experience from admiring it. Across a dinner it reads as abundance. In the morning it reads as something quieter, almost austere. The painting shifts with the hour, which is why it survives daily company.
Glaze, Bone and Flat Shadow
The Lacquered Surface
At arm's length the ham's skin is the whole show. Vallotton builds the glaze from tight, controlled highlights, each one placed where the light would actually strike a wet, roasted surface. The effect is closer to ceramics than to food. The colour runs from deep amber into rose, and the transitions are smooth enough that the eye reads the skin as a single curved plane. It is this handling that makes an ordinary cut of meat feel expensive.
Space Pressed Forward
The background does exactly what Nabi painting does best. It refuses depth. A dark, unbroken field sits behind the table, so the objects have nowhere to recede and instead push toward the viewer. The cloth is a broad pale band that anchors the composition. The result is a picture that behaves almost like a relief, flat in structure yet solid in its objects, which is why it reads so clearly from across a room.
Objects in Attendance
Nothing on the table is incidental. The knife lies at a deliberate diagonal, its blade echoing the long curve of the ham. The fruit sits just inside the light, round forms against the angular cut. The bone at the end is painted with the same care as the glaze, pale and dry against the richness around it. Each element is positioned where the eye lands next, so the composition moves in a fixed order and rewards long looking.
Designing with The Ham
This belongs in a room where food is handled seriously. Above a sideboard in a dining room it hangs at eye level, roughly 145 to 155 cm to centre, and the dark background does the work of anchoring a pale wall. In a kitchen with open shelving, the smaller size sits well above a butcher block or a narrow pantry wall. The largest size needs breathing room, a metre of clear wall on either side, and rewards a room with low, warm evening light. It pairs naturally with brass, dark wood, and linen, and it holds its own against a deep green or oxblood wall where the shadowed background nearly disappears. Give it a table nearby. The picture wants an audience that eats.
Sizes and Prices for The Ham
The Ham is produced as a framed poster in 3 sizes. Each is printed to order on archival stock and ships free worldwide.
Own The Ham
Felix Vallotton, produced as a framed poster and made to order. Complimentary delivery, worldwide.
View the EditionDoes this print come framed, and with what materials?
Yes. It arrives in a premium hardwood frame made with conservation-grade materials, built to protect the print and complement it without drawing attention away from the artwork.
How much is shipping, and what's the typical delivery window?
Shipping is complimentary worldwide, with no order minimum. Expect delivery in roughly 5-10 business days depending on where you're located.
What materials keep the print archival-quality?
The print itself is produced on archival paper, and it's glazed with UV-protective acrylic to help the colors hold up over time.
What happens if I want to send it back?
You have 30 days from delivery to return it for a full refund or exchange -- the piece just needs to come back in its original condition.
More Works by Felix Vallotton
Further works by Felix Vallotton in the Auvrique collection.
Sources & Further Reading
- See Architectural Digest
- The J. Paul Getty Museum
- For more detail, see Elle Decor
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Bring Vallotton Home
Printed to order on archival stock, delivered worldwide at no cost, ready to hang within 5 to 10 business days.
View the Edition