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Lot Essay
Please note that the present work has been promised to the exhibition Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, patron of the Avant-Garde, which will take place in New York at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (September 2006 - January 2007), Chicago, Art Institute (February - May 2007) and Paris, Musée d'Orsay (June - September 2007).
Exceptional in technique, subject matter, and execution, Petit vase: scène de rue is an exquisite and rare ceramic from Bonnard's Nabis period. Like his fellow Nabis, the artist had a universal interest in art. He worked in various techniques and on different supports, including screens, fans, furniture, stained glass, and ceramics. Today very few of his ceramics survive.
Bonnard was introduced to ceramics by his dealer, Ambroise Vollard, who commissioned and owned this vase made of unglazed painted Sèvres porcelain. Vollard himself had developed an interest in ceramics after visiting an exhibition of decorative arts, and he subsequently steered his artists towards working with professional ceramicists. The ceramicist of the present work is not known - but it was possibly André Metthey who shaped the vase before Bonnard painted it.
Petit vase: scène de rue can be dated to around 1894-1895. The subject, a snapshot of the hectic life of a modern city such as Paris, and its ornamental treatment are characteristic of Bonnard's work at the time and, more generally, of the themes in which the Nabis were deeply interested. Nonetheless it is not without humour that Bonnard captures the man in a top hat and an elegant woman who are hastily crossing one of the grands boulevards of Paris. The background, arranged like a frieze around the collar of the vase, shows the busy crowd and carriages waiting for customers. The two main figures, appearing as silhouettes, form a strong contrast against both the unpainted surface of the vase and the much smaller figures in the background. Bonnard re-used this type of two plan composition in his famous screen Paravent des nourrices ou frise de fiacres of 1895 (fig. 1).
The stylised figures evidently reflect Bonnard's interest in Oriental art, such as the Chinese Shadow theatre; similar figures appear in other works by Bonnard, such as his street scene paintings of 1894-1895 (for example Cheval de fiacre; Dauberville 92bis). Another source, of course, were Japanese prints, which Bonnard had many occasions to study, first at the gallery of the great Japanese and Art Nouveau dealer, Siegfried Bing, and then in the collections of his two friends, Edouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis.
(Fig.1) Pierre Bonnard, Promenade des nourrices ou Frises des fiacres, 1895.
©ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London
Exceptional in technique, subject matter, and execution, Petit vase: scène de rue is an exquisite and rare ceramic from Bonnard's Nabis period. Like his fellow Nabis, the artist had a universal interest in art. He worked in various techniques and on different supports, including screens, fans, furniture, stained glass, and ceramics. Today very few of his ceramics survive.
Bonnard was introduced to ceramics by his dealer, Ambroise Vollard, who commissioned and owned this vase made of unglazed painted Sèvres porcelain. Vollard himself had developed an interest in ceramics after visiting an exhibition of decorative arts, and he subsequently steered his artists towards working with professional ceramicists. The ceramicist of the present work is not known - but it was possibly André Metthey who shaped the vase before Bonnard painted it.
Petit vase: scène de rue can be dated to around 1894-1895. The subject, a snapshot of the hectic life of a modern city such as Paris, and its ornamental treatment are characteristic of Bonnard's work at the time and, more generally, of the themes in which the Nabis were deeply interested. Nonetheless it is not without humour that Bonnard captures the man in a top hat and an elegant woman who are hastily crossing one of the grands boulevards of Paris. The background, arranged like a frieze around the collar of the vase, shows the busy crowd and carriages waiting for customers. The two main figures, appearing as silhouettes, form a strong contrast against both the unpainted surface of the vase and the much smaller figures in the background. Bonnard re-used this type of two plan composition in his famous screen Paravent des nourrices ou frise de fiacres of 1895 (fig. 1).
The stylised figures evidently reflect Bonnard's interest in Oriental art, such as the Chinese Shadow theatre; similar figures appear in other works by Bonnard, such as his street scene paintings of 1894-1895 (for example Cheval de fiacre; Dauberville 92bis). Another source, of course, were Japanese prints, which Bonnard had many occasions to study, first at the gallery of the great Japanese and Art Nouveau dealer, Siegfried Bing, and then in the collections of his two friends, Edouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis.
(Fig.1) Pierre Bonnard, Promenade des nourrices ou Frises des fiacres, 1895.
©ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London