A stunning collection of works by Pierre Bonnard — gifted to the family of his brother-in-law, Claude Terrasse

The artist Pierre Bonnard had a morning routine from which he never liked to deviate. Before breakfast, he would drink a large glass of water, then take a long walk with his dog. A sketchbook was always in his pocket, in case something caught his eye to draw.

Chiefly, however, the walks had an invigorating purpose, allowing him to see different sights, fill his lungs with fresh air, and absorb fleeting sensations — all before he settled down to a day’s work in the studio.

That work ranged from still lifes and domestic interiors to vibrant landscapes — and examples of all these can be found in a stunning collection established by his friend and brother-in-law, the composer Claude Terrasse. On 14 April 2026, the collection is being offered in Dans l’intimité de Pierre Bonnard: Collection Claude Terrasse at Christie’s in Paris.

As well as oil paintings, it includes drawings and lithographs, plus watercolours — one of which, Portrait d’homme (a caricature of a man with a rat-tail haircut), the artist produced at the age of 13.

The sale’s top lot comes from the other end of Bonnard’s career. He painted Midi au Jardin in 1946, a year before his death. Set in the artist’s home, Le Bosquet, in the hills overlooking Cannes, it offers a view of his garden.

Complete with orange, fig, lemon and almond trees, along with thickets and flowering bushes, the scene is illuminated by the midday sun. The work is typical of Bonnard’s practice in its rejection of traditional one-point perspective with a focus on a single motif. Instead, the artist gives everything equal emphasis, whether it be in the foreground or the distance.

The result is an enchanting immersive spectacle, where colours are brought to incandescence — and the contours of objects hint at dissolution — owing to the strength of the Mediterranean light.

Bonnard was born in 1867, into a comfortably-off family in the village of Fontenay-aux-Roses, outside Paris. His father was a civil servant, who hoped young Pierre would pursue a career in law. The latter did complete a legal degree, but subsequently chose to become an artist.

Early on, he was part of the Paris-based avant-garde group the Nabis, and in La Rue. Homme aux prises avec deux chiens, one can spot stylistic traits associated with them. The painting depicts a man on a street struggling to control two dogs. The accumulation of paving stones across almost all of the picture surface corresponds to the Nabis’ fondness for patterned design — and for a transcription of the world around them that was decorative as much descriptive.

Bonnard soon struck out on his own, however, insisting: ‘I am not of any school. I’m just trying to do something personal.’

He said this in 1891, not long after meeting Terrasse for the first time. The budding musician had befriended the artist’s brother Charles while they were on military service together. On visiting the Bonnard family home, Terrasse befriended Pierre, too — and fell in love with the artist’s sister Andrée, a keen pianist.

The couple soon married, and hosted regular concerts at their home — which they affectionately dubbed Villa Bach. Bonnard often collaborated with Terrasse at this time, particularly by producing illustrations. As revealed in the upcoming sale, these adorned an early book of the composer’s scores, as well as a manual he wrote about the musical education technique solfège and the programmes that accompanied concerts at Villa Bach.

Bonnard would also marry. His wife, Marthe de Meligny, is said to have entranced him from the moment he first saw her, stepping off a horse-drawn tram. She served as a model and a muse for him throughout his career, most famously in a series of paintings of her nude in the bathroom before, during or after a bath. The sale includes a watercolour study for one such painting (the finished work now being owned by the Centre Pompidou).

Bonnard and Marthe never had children. Terrasse and Andrée had six, for whom the artist and his wife acted as a second set of parents. When children appear in Bonnard’s work — as in his drawings for a new edition of Longus’s novel Daphnis and Chloe — they were often inspired by his nieces and nephews.

The best-known depiction of them comes in L’Après-midi bourgeoise, a group portrait from 1900 of the entire Terrasse family (today in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay). The Christie’s sale will feature a portrait by Bonnard of his nephew Jean Terrasse as a medical student, painted in 1912.

Bonnard, by this point, was in his mid-forties — and the recent owner of his first car, an 11CV Renault. He and Marthe enjoyed going on drives across France, and these trips would hasten the couple’s full-time departure from Paris. ‘There is too much noise, too many distractions,’ Bonnard said of the French capital. ‘I know that other artists become accustomed to that kind of life. I find it difficult.’

Bonnard and Marthe duly moved away, first to the village of Vernonnet in Normandy, and then, in the mid-1920s, to the village of Le Cannet on the Côte d’Azur, where they purchased Le Bosquet.

Bonnard’s art evolved over these years, too, notably in a shift from scenes set on Parisian streets to intimate visions of his immediate surroundings. Examples of this shift offered in the sale include seductive still lifes of a vase of roses (Roses) and a basket of peaches (Nature morte aux pêches). The vase is viewed from an overhead angle, resting on a reddish tablecloth which — thanks to the artist’s play with perspective — doubles as the background.

As Bonnard spent more and more time in the Mediterranean, his paintings also showed a new radiance of colour. Not that he used colour objectively: he painted, instead, through the filter of his own emotions. Bonnard’s work involved feeling as much as seeing.

Hence the yellows and pinks that saturate the surface of Ruelle du midi, suffusing the composition with sun-drenched intensity. This scene is set in an alleyway in Le Cannet at noon, the buildings there having lost their volumetric solidity and seeming to melt before our eyes.

Bonnard died in 1947, aged 79. His collaborations with Terrasse had become less frequent as both men achieved success in their respective fields. In Terrasse’s case, this included the composition of popular operettas such as Le Sire de Vergy, Monsieur de La Palisse, and Le Mariage de Télémaque. These works helped earn him the nickname ‘the prince of French operetta’.

Terrasse died in 1923, the same year as his wife Andrée. Their eldest child, the aforementioned Jean, had a distinguished career of his own. Having served as a physician on the Western Front in the First World War, he was awarded both the Médaille des Epidémies and the Croix de Guerre for his efforts to combat a devastating outbreak of cerebrospinal meningitis.

After the war, Jean helped open the first of several sanatoria devoted to the treatment of tuberculosis, in the Alpine village of Plateau d’Assy. In 1925, the elder of his two children was born: a son called Claude. Bonnard was the boy’s godfather.

The choice of name was deliberate — and, like his grandfather, he would go on to have a career in music. This included roles as titular organist of the Parisian church of Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, and professor of instrumental analysis at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris.

Claude passed away in 2008. His heirs are now bringing his collection of Bonnard works to auction, all of them having been gifts to the Terrasse clan from the artist himself, and all coming to market for the first time.

The collection is testament both to the personal bond that connected Bonnard with the Terrasses across generations, and to his excellence as an artist — his pictures revealing ever greater riches the longer one looks at them. Of his aim each time he set to work, Bonnard said, ‘It’s not a matter of painting life… it’s a matter of giving life to painting.’

Dans l’intimité de Pierre Bonnard: Collection Claude Terrasse is on view from 9 to 14 April 2026 at Christie’s in Paris, alongside Radical Genius: Works on Paper from A Distinguished Private Collection (9-15 April)

Related artists: Pierre Bonnard