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Lot Essay
Suffused with golden radiance, Le Vestibule depicts, on the right, Bonnard’s lifelong partner and muse Marthe de Méligny; on the left is a young maid, who also appears in La leçon de couture, 1926 (Dauberville, no. 1360; Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.). The two figures—situated back-to-back on either side of a projecting wall, seemingly unaware of each other’s presence—are a poignant study in contrasts. The younger woman is captured mid-step, a dish in her hands, advancing purposefully toward the light that streams into the scene from the left. Her face is brightly illuminated, and her red blouse stands out in vivid counterpoint against the yellow wall. Marthe, conversely, remains utterly still and silent, her head bowed in a posture of pensive self-absorption tinged with melancholy. Her striped top is woven into the very architecture of the room, with its network of horizontals and verticals, while her face, sunken in shadow, is scarcely discernible against the wooden sideboard. The maid seems to exist in the here-and-now, while Marthe occupies a space of reverie, on the boundary between reality and dreams.
Bonnard painted this enigmatic scene at Le Bosquet, a modest villa overlooking the bay of Cannes that he and Marthe purchased in February 1926, six months after they finally wed. Following a campaign of renovations, which included a studio for the artist and a modern bath for Marthe, they occupied the house in mid-1927; Bonnard painted the present canvas the same year and sent it to Pittsburgh in 1928 for the annual Carnegie Exhibition. The maid in the composition is seen entering the first-floor dining room, which had walls painted Naples yellow with wainscoting beneath.
Although Bonnard would peregrinate for the ensuing decade between the South of France and the Seine valley, where he also owned a home, Le Bosquet served as his most profound and enduring source of creative inspiration, as well as the inner sanctum of his domestic intimacy with Marthe, whose health had begun to decline. In the quiet, well-trodden rooms of the house, he made notes in his journal of color patterns or fleeting observations that sparked his impulse to begin a picture. He then painted from memory back in his studio, on lengths of canvas tacked directly to the wall, transforming his initial visual experiences into variegated tapestries of brilliant color. “The principal subject is the surface,” Bonnard maintained, “which has its laws over and above those of objects. It’s not a matter of painting life, it’s a matter of giving life to painting” (quoted in N. Watkins, Bonnard, London, 1994, p. 171).
Bonnard painted this enigmatic scene at Le Bosquet, a modest villa overlooking the bay of Cannes that he and Marthe purchased in February 1926, six months after they finally wed. Following a campaign of renovations, which included a studio for the artist and a modern bath for Marthe, they occupied the house in mid-1927; Bonnard painted the present canvas the same year and sent it to Pittsburgh in 1928 for the annual Carnegie Exhibition. The maid in the composition is seen entering the first-floor dining room, which had walls painted Naples yellow with wainscoting beneath.
Although Bonnard would peregrinate for the ensuing decade between the South of France and the Seine valley, where he also owned a home, Le Bosquet served as his most profound and enduring source of creative inspiration, as well as the inner sanctum of his domestic intimacy with Marthe, whose health had begun to decline. In the quiet, well-trodden rooms of the house, he made notes in his journal of color patterns or fleeting observations that sparked his impulse to begin a picture. He then painted from memory back in his studio, on lengths of canvas tacked directly to the wall, transforming his initial visual experiences into variegated tapestries of brilliant color. “The principal subject is the surface,” Bonnard maintained, “which has its laws over and above those of objects. It’s not a matter of painting life, it’s a matter of giving life to painting” (quoted in N. Watkins, Bonnard, London, 1994, p. 171).