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Lot Essay
By 1912, the decorative elements of Pierre Bonnard’s Nabi paintings had deepened into more sustained meditations on domestic life, while his chromatic innovations became increasingly pronounced in his interior scenes. That year, amid a peripatetic living situation, Bonnard acquired a villa he named “Ma Roulette” in Vernonnet, a village in Normandy only a few miles from Claude Monet’s Giverny. From this vantage, he fused the region’s lush, verdant landscape with his intimist interiors. Bonnard’s own description of the view from “Ma Roulette” conveys the sensuous immediacy of this setting: “…the pale green and golden fields of early summer; the riverbeds lined with poplars, elms, ash trees, and the silvery patches of willows; the majestic river itself, alive with boats, and blue in the sunshine or lead-gray in the rain…” (quoted in A. Terrasse, Bonnard: Shimmering Color, New York, 2000, p. 133).
Envisioned in the dining room at “Ma Roulette,” Femme au compotier de fruits presents a vivid, poised interior, likely depicting the artist’s lifelong partner, Marthe de Méligny. Bonnard’s mise-en-scène is carefully calibrated: the rounded edge of the table bisects the canvas, dividing attention between Marthe and the still-life arrangement. Curvilinear forms, such as the tabletop, dishes, and fruit, are counterbalanced by the verticals of the curtain and luminous windowpanes beyond. The slightly tilted perspective invites the viewer to occupy the empty seat, as the tablecloth unfolds into an expansive field of interwoven lilacs and blues. Within this suspended moment, only small details, such as the lightly ripened bananas, gently reassert the scene’s verisimilitude.
Working largely from memory, Bonnard veils the composition in a soft, atmospheric haze. A narrow glimpse of the exterior in the upper left draws the outside world inward, merging with the contemplative interior space. Dabs of saturated blue, whites and oranges articulate the flowers, echoed by the vivid orange and purple curtain, that resonates with the sunlit citrus on the pale blue tablecloth. A related treatment appears in La fenêtre ouverte (1921, The Phillips Collection), where the curtain seems to dissolve into the surrounding surface. Such passages exemplify Bonnard’s playful, fluid handling of space and form.
Marthe delicately balances grapes between her fingers, her eyes closed, embodying what Sarah Whitfield has described as “soothing lulls that punctuate a domestic routine” (Fragments of an Identical World, New York, 1998, p. 10). Here, Bonnard endows Marthe with a youthful softness. As his “quasi-exclusive” model, Marthe oscillates between intimate presence and generalized archetype. Her modestly covered hair and downcast gaze recall the quietude of Dutch still-life painting, while the halo-like glow of morning light suggests Marian imagery. This duality, at once familiar and remote, renders her both accessible and elusive. As Whitfield further observes: “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” (ibid., p. 17).
The present painting has recently remained in the collection of Joanna Carson, and previously in her joint collection with Johnny Carson. Fresh to the market, it is offered at auction for the first time in over five decades.
Envisioned in the dining room at “Ma Roulette,” Femme au compotier de fruits presents a vivid, poised interior, likely depicting the artist’s lifelong partner, Marthe de Méligny. Bonnard’s mise-en-scène is carefully calibrated: the rounded edge of the table bisects the canvas, dividing attention between Marthe and the still-life arrangement. Curvilinear forms, such as the tabletop, dishes, and fruit, are counterbalanced by the verticals of the curtain and luminous windowpanes beyond. The slightly tilted perspective invites the viewer to occupy the empty seat, as the tablecloth unfolds into an expansive field of interwoven lilacs and blues. Within this suspended moment, only small details, such as the lightly ripened bananas, gently reassert the scene’s verisimilitude.
Working largely from memory, Bonnard veils the composition in a soft, atmospheric haze. A narrow glimpse of the exterior in the upper left draws the outside world inward, merging with the contemplative interior space. Dabs of saturated blue, whites and oranges articulate the flowers, echoed by the vivid orange and purple curtain, that resonates with the sunlit citrus on the pale blue tablecloth. A related treatment appears in La fenêtre ouverte (1921, The Phillips Collection), where the curtain seems to dissolve into the surrounding surface. Such passages exemplify Bonnard’s playful, fluid handling of space and form.
Marthe delicately balances grapes between her fingers, her eyes closed, embodying what Sarah Whitfield has described as “soothing lulls that punctuate a domestic routine” (Fragments of an Identical World, New York, 1998, p. 10). Here, Bonnard endows Marthe with a youthful softness. As his “quasi-exclusive” model, Marthe oscillates between intimate presence and generalized archetype. Her modestly covered hair and downcast gaze recall the quietude of Dutch still-life painting, while the halo-like glow of morning light suggests Marian imagery. This duality, at once familiar and remote, renders her both accessible and elusive. As Whitfield further observes: “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” (ibid., p. 17).
The present painting has recently remained in the collection of Joanna Carson, and previously in her joint collection with Johnny Carson. Fresh to the market, it is offered at auction for the first time in over five decades.