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Lot Essay
Executed circa 1940, Nu dans la baignoire appears to be closely related to Nu dans le bain au petit chien (fig. 1). This would confirm a date of circa 1940, the final period in Bonnard's series of full length nudes in baths originally begun in the mid-1920s. In a departure from earlier treatments of the theme, such as those in the Tate Gallery of 1925 (D.1334) and the Petit Palais in Paris of 1935 (D.1558), the female figure in the present sheet and the Pittsburgh picture - as well as in two tiny pencil sketches in Bonnard's diary from the beginning of 1940 - raises her right knee slightly. In the present work the model's right arm is also in a slightly different position to that in the Pittsburgh picture.
The series of nudes lying in a bath - generally accepted to represent the artist's wife, Marthe, at the age she was when they first met - offers a fascinating insight into Bonnard's very individual use of memory in his working method. It also adds a striking element of poignancy to the present work, dating as it does from the year of Marthe's death. In discussing the series in the catalogue of the 1998 Tate exhibition, Sarah Whitfield wrote: 'The body...invites a prolonged contemplation which in turn invites a sense of finality. The horizontal format, and the way this is echoed in the symmetry of the composition, is an essential part of this inducement to look at this painting as one might look at a recumbent figure on a tomb. The calmness of the image and the transparency of the colour encourages a sinking into the painting which is like sinking into the the quiet emptiness of a Rothko' (op. cit., p. 28).
Guy-Patrice Dauberville of Bernheim-Jeune & Cie has kindly confirmed the authenticity of this work.
The series of nudes lying in a bath - generally accepted to represent the artist's wife, Marthe, at the age she was when they first met - offers a fascinating insight into Bonnard's very individual use of memory in his working method. It also adds a striking element of poignancy to the present work, dating as it does from the year of Marthe's death. In discussing the series in the catalogue of the 1998 Tate exhibition, Sarah Whitfield wrote: 'The body...invites a prolonged contemplation which in turn invites a sense of finality. The horizontal format, and the way this is echoed in the symmetry of the composition, is an essential part of this inducement to look at this painting as one might look at a recumbent figure on a tomb. The calmness of the image and the transparency of the colour encourages a sinking into the painting which is like sinking into the the quiet emptiness of a Rothko' (op. cit., p. 28).
Guy-Patrice Dauberville of Bernheim-Jeune & C