Pierre Bonnard

Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the artist)
G. Gérard, Limoges (acquired from the above)
Private Collection, Rennes
Sale: Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 20th March 1959
Collection Hervé Odermatt, Paris
Mme Raoul Breton, France (1965)
Galerie Odermatt, Paris
Acquired from the above by the present owner in the early 1980s

Paris, Bernheim-Jeune, Bonnard. Oeuvres récentes, 1913, no. 3
Munich, Haus der Kunst & Paris, Orangerie des Tuileries, Pierre Bonnard. Centenaire de sa naissance, 1966-67, no. 72, illustrated in the catalogue
Zurich, Kunsthaus, Bonnard, 1985
Frankfurt, Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut, Bonnard, 1985, no. 74, illustrated in the catalogue
Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Bonnard, 1994, no. 55
Luxembourg, Musée National d'Histoire et d'Art de Luxembourg, Collections privées du Luxembourg, 1995, no. 36
Tokyo, Sompo Japan Museum of Art Seiji Togo; Kagoshima, City Art Museum & Tokushima, Prefectural Museum, Pierre Bonnard, 2004, no. 12

Léon Werth, Bonnard, Paris, 1919, illustrated pl. 34 (titled Portrait de Madame P.B.)
Tristan Klingsor, 'Pierre Bonnard', in L'Amour de l'Art, no. 8, August 1921, illustrated p. 245
Georges Besson, Bonnard, Paris, 1934, illustrated pl. 30
'Bonnard', in Le Point, no. 24, 1943, illustrated p. 3 (as dating from 1917-18)
Florent Fels, 'Peintres et sculpteurs d'hier et d'aujourd'hui', in L'Art vivant de 1900 à nos jours, Geneva, 1950, illustrated p. 21
Thadée Natanson, Le Bonnard que je propose, Geneva, 1951, p. 123
Arts, 11th-17th March 1959, p. 14
Jean & Henry Dauberville, Bonnard. Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Paris, 1968, vol. II, no. 671, illustrated p. 245
Michel Terrasse, Bonnard: du dessin au tableau, Paris, 1996, illustrated in colour p. 108

La Femme au basset or Portrait de Marthe Bonnard au basset is an intimate example of Bonnard's domestic interiors. The theme of la vie bourgeoise is a subject that preoccupied Bonnard from the time of his earlier intimiste interiors of the 1890s. Whilst in most other works Marthe is depicted in everyday activities such as having breakfast or drying after a bath, in the present work she is presented in more formal clothes, wearing a black dress and hat and adorned with a bright green necklace. She is not, however, posing for the artist, but is captured in a private moment, looking down at her dog Ubu, and seemingly unaware of being observed and painted.

 

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 Identical World', in Bonnard (exhibition catalogue), Tate Gallery, London, 1998, p. 17).