What lurked in the bourgeoisie and how could its likeness be represented, besides double-entry bookkeeping?

Enter Félix Vallotton, the bourgeois striver son of a Swiss family who came to Paris in 1882 for a full-fledged substitution in the École des Beaux-Arts at the Julian Academy. He soon came into contact with the Nabis, a group of Gauguin and Cézanne who included Bonnard and Vuillard, as well as with the Hebrews for "prophets.' They preached spiritual renewal and, most effectively, a throwaway of the illusionary spa....