Pierre Bonnard

Estate of the artist

Acquired from the above by the family of the present owners in the 1950s

Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Bonnard, 1947, no. 41

London, Royal Academy of Arts, Pierre Bonnard, 1966, no. 243, illustrated in the catalogue (as dating from 1939)

Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria; Adelaide, The Art Gallery of South Australia; Perth, The Art Gallery of Western Australia & Sydney, Australia Museum, Pierre Bonnard, 1971, no. 35, illustrated in the catalogue (as dating from circa 1939)

Johannesburg, Johannesburgse Kunsmuseum, Pierre Bonnard, 1971-72, no. 35, illustrated in the catalogue

São Paulo, Museu de Arte, Pierre Bonnard, 1972, no. 35, illustrated in the catalogue

Albi, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, 1972, no. 36

Tokyo, Nihonbashi Takashimaya Art Galleries; Kobe, Le Musée Préfectoral d’Art Moderne, Hyogo; Nagoya, Le Musée Préfectoral d’Art, Aichi & Fukuoka, Le Musée Municipal d’Art, Exposition Pierre Bonnard, 1980-81, no. 79, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Geneva, Musée Rath, Pierre Bonnard, 1981, no. 79, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

New York, Wildenstein & Co., Ltd., The Inquiring Eye of Pierre Bonnard, 1981, no. 54, illustrated in the catalogue

Madrid, Fundación Juan March, Bonnard, 1983, no. 59

Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Bonnard, les dernières peintures, 1984

Lausanne, Fondation de l’Hermitage, Pierre Bonnard, 1991, no. 73, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Bonnard, 1994, no. 129, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

London, Tate & New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Bonnard, 1998, no. 87, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Bonnard, 1999, no. 61, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

‘Couleur de Bonnard’, in Verve, vol. V, nos. 17-18, 1947, illustrated in colour (titled Nu au gant)

Annette Vaillant, Bonnard, Paris, 1965, illustrated in colour p. 128

Jean & Henry Dauberville, Bonnard, catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint, Paris, 1973, vol. IV, no. 1623, illustrated p. 56

Michel Terrasse, Bonnard at Le Cannet, London, 1988, listed p. 126 (as dating from 1937)

The canvas is lined. There is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. Apart from an area of fluorescence along all four edges, which appears to be due to an earlier turnover edge, this work is in very good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although slightly brighter and more varied in the original.
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Le gant de crin is a monumental example of Bonnard’s favourite and most celebrated theme, that of a female nude in an interior. Throughout his career, he depicted bathers and nudes in a domestic setting, occupied by a daily routine. The subject of the present work is Marthe (fig. 1), the artist’s life-long companion, muse and model for a number of his portraits and intimate interiors, as well as for his photographs. Although the present work was executed in 1942, probably shortly after Marthe’s death in January of that year, her presence was still strong in the artist’s life and work. Bonnard met Marthe de Méligny (née Maria Boursin) in 1893, when she was a fashionable young Parisian shopgirl, and married her in 1925. The image of Marthe provided the artist with an endless source of inspiration: he depicted her going about her everyday activities – washing, dressing or undressing, sitting at a table or reading.

 

In the present work, Marthe is captured in a personal moment, drying herself with a mitten after a bath, her upwards gaze away from the viewer indicating complete absorption in this act, as if unaware of being watched. Despite the imposing scale of this work, Bonnard retains the warm, personal atmosphere of his best intimiste paintings, portraying his muse indulging in a private moment. At the same time, he takes pleasure in depicting the nude figure in its full glory, lit by the warm light reflected on her skin and on the towel covering her legs. Bonnard's nudes look very much at ease with themselves, and as a result, these images have a natural and somewhat spontaneous quality, which enhances the intimacy of the scene. These women are depicted during their most private moments and convey the artist's understanding of and sensitivity towards everyday rituals.

 

In Le gant de crin Bonnard focused not only on portraying the woman and her curvaceous physique, but paid equal attention to the interior surrounding her. The scene takes place in the bathroom of the artist’s home ‘Le Bosquet’ at Le Cannet, above Cannes, where he and his wife had lived since the 1920s. While the accentuated verticality of the composition results in a reduced view of the interior, the elements of the bathroom are just visible, as they disappear off the scope of the canvas. Like Degas, who would radically crop his images of bathers in a manner resembling Japanese prints, Bonnard employs a similar method of establishing the boundary between the viewer and the figure. He encourages us to imagine the domestic space beyond the scope of the canvas with this pictorial device. There is a fine line between openness and vulnerability inherent in these compositions of nudes, and here Bonnard's careful attention to the arrangement of space ensures the delicate balance of these two qualities.

 

Discussing Bonnard’s portrayals of Marthe, Sarah Whitfield wrote: ‘Marthe is almost always seen in her own domestic surroundings, and as an integral part of those surroundings. […] In a sense many of these works are variations on the theme of the artist and his model as well as on the double portrait. This is the case even when Bonnard is not visible. […] We are always made acutely aware that whatever the subject of the painting – a nude, a still life, a landscape – what we are being asked to witness (and to participate in) is the process of looking. But it is in the paintings of Marthe above all that we find Bonnard portraying himself as the ever-attentive, watchful presence’ (S. Whitfield, ‘Fragments of an Identical World’, in Bonnard (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., 1998, p. 17).