Pierre Bonnard

Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the artist in 1911)
Private Collection, Europe
Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the above in 1925)
Marcel Kapferer, Paris
Sale: Alphonse Bellier, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 17, 1928, lot 12
Gaston Lévy, Paris (and sold: Alphonse Bellier, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 17, 1932, lot 59)
Acquired at the above sale and thence by descent 

Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Bonnard, Oeuvres récentes, 1912, no. 26 

Gustave Coquiot, Bonnard, Paris, 1922, p. 44
Jean & Henry Dauberville, Bonnard, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, 1906-19, vol. II, Paris, 1992, no. 652, illustrated p. 229

This work is in very good condition. The canvas is not lined. It is well-stretched on its original stretcher. The surface is clean and richly-textured. The pigments are bright and fresh. Some minor old frame abrasion to extreme edge and very faint stretcher mark. Under UV light: some original pigments fluoresce. A few tiny dots of inpainting are visible along extreme edges. One small faint spot fluoresces, possibly inpainting, to light blue pigment in foliage to left of center.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Pierre Bonnard visited the Côte d’Azur for the first time in 1906 and returned to the region around Saint-Tropez several times in the following years. The light and colors of the Mediterranean profoundly captivated him and in a letter to his mother he would describe his discovery of the South as a magical epiphany: “I had an ‘Arabian Nights experience.' The sea, the yellow walls, and reflections as colourful as the lights themselves…” (quoted in Annette Vaillant, Bonnard ou le Bonheur de voir, Neuchâtel, 1965, p. 115, translated from the French).

In the spring and summer of 1911, he visited Saint-Tropez no less than three times in the company of his friends Paul Signac and Henri Manguin, drawn to the lush vegetation and the dazzling light that reflected off the water. In this luminous seascape from the same year, painted in a symphony of emerald and aquamarine, we see the transformative effect of these Mediterranean surroundings on his art. Bonnard famously did not paint from life or on location outdoors; therefore it is likely that he would have first sketched this view, perhaps even taking photographs, and made notes on the colors before returning to his studio to paint the canvas. The composition thus exudes a supernatural, phosphorescent light—we experience the colors as Bonnard remembers them; the real landscape is filtered through the artist’s imagination. As Patrick Lacquemont notes in the introduction to the major retrospective at the Musée d’Orsay this year, though Bonnard drew subject matter from the material world, his was an Arcadian universe in which Art and the quest for the Ideal shaped his experience: “Literature and music drive his inspiration, in which the real is fused with the imaginary in compositions saturated with color and light” (Patrick Lacquemont in Pierre Bonnard: Painting Arcadia (exhibition catalogue), Musée d’Orsay, Paris, 2015, p. 7).

Following the success of these first, fruitful sojourns to Provence, Bonnard would eventually abandon Paris altogether, purchasing a home in Le Cannet in 1926 and remaining there for the rest of his life. Nicholas Watkins has observed that a real distinction can be drawn between Bonnard’s Northern and Southern landscapes: “Whereas in the former he was more concerned with capturing the transient effects of weather, in the latter the permanence of atmosphere drew him into an alternative Mediterranean vision of a classical Golden Age. Cézanne and Renoir, rather than Monet, became his mentors in the south. The greens of his first terrace decoration at Vernonnet gave way to the pervasive golden light” (Nicholas Watkins, Bonnard, London, 1994, p. 156). The influence of Cézanne can certainly be seen in this radiant composition, with its broken and visible brush marks and simplification of forms. Bonnard used aspects of Impressionism to help him obtain greater artistic freedom, as he himself recounted: “When my friends and I decided to pick up the research of the Impressionists, and to attempt to take it further, we wanted to outshine them in their naturalistic impressions of color. Art is not Nature. We were stricter in composition. There was a lot more to be got out of color as a means of expression” (quoted in Timothy Hyman, Bonnard, London, 1988, p. 65).

Marine Saint-Tropez has a particularly prestigious provenance: its first owner was the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, who purchased it directly from the artist soon after its completion and included it in a monographic exhibition of Bonnard’s recent pictures in 1912. It was later acquired by two legendary early twentieth-century collectors, Marcel Kapferer and then Gaston Lévy. Since the 1930s it has remained in a private French collection and has never again been exhibited nor illustrated in color.