Woman with cat
Pierre Bonnard, 1912
Image not available: work still under copyright
Painted by Pierre Bonnard in 1912, this oil on canvas shows Marthe, the artist's wife, seated beside a table laid for a meal. A cat climbs onto the tablecloth at her side, and fruit and tableware complete the domestic scene. Bonnard, a French Post-Impressionist close to the Nabis group, arranges the picture in flat areas of colour and tilted surfaces, so that space seems organised in a different way. This structure recalls Japanese prints, an influence visible in much of Bonnard's work and in that of his Nabis colleagues. Rather than a psychological portrait, the painting presents an everyday interior in which the animal and the objects on the table matter as much as the figure. The work passed through the Musée National d'Art Moderne before reaching the Musée d'Orsay, where it is now held.
- Painter
- Pierre Bonnard
- Date
- 1912
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 78 × 78 cm
- Museum
- Musée d'Orsay, Paris
- Genre
- portrait
- Depicts
- sitting, cat, table, fruit, woman, tableware