Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947)
Lot 176 WORKS ON PAPER FROM THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AVANT-GARDES
The Collection of a Scholar, Sold to Benefit Humanitarian Causes

Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947)

Intérieur avec Marthe Bonnard

Closed28 June 2017

Price Realised

GBP 10,000

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Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947)
Intérieur avec Marthe Bonnard
stamped with the artist's monogram 'PB' (Lugt 3886; lower right)
pencil on paper
6 3/8 x 5 in. (16.4 x 12.5 cm.)
Executed circa 1930

Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris (no. 81A).
Galleria I Portici, Turin.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Specialist note

Guy-Patrice and Floriane Dauberville have confirmed the authenticity of this work.


Bonnard’s fondness for depicting intimate scenes of everyday life, has led to him being called an “Intimist”; his wife Marthe was an ever-present subject over the course of several decades. She is often seen seated at the kitchen table, with the remnants of a meal, like in the present lot, or nude, as in a famous series of paintings where she reclines in the bathtub.

Legend has it that a 26-year-old Pierre Bonnard met 16-year-old Marthe when he helped her cross a Paris street in 1893. Marthe had just moved to Paris after leaving her small hometown of Saint-Amand-Montrond, and was working in a shop making artificial flowers for funerals. As things turned out, Marthe awoke in him an unorthodox tenderness; he took her in and sheltered her. Nonetheless, Bonnard did not discover her real name, Maria Boursin, until they eventually married, in 1925, some 30 years after they had met.