This scene shows Bonnard’s sister Andrée Terrasse and two of her children, Robert, and, silhouetted against the lamp, Vivette. They are seated for an evening meal in the Terrasse’s home at Le Grand-Lemps in the rural south of France. Bonnard painted many such intimate domestic scenes on a small scale using his family as models. Despite the feeling that we intrude into the setting, the canvas was actually painted back in his studio in Paris from a sketch.
Bonnard exhibited his works at this date with a group of artists known as the Nabis (Prophets). They looked beyond Impressionism to a more decorative effect.
Inscriptions / Translations: Signed I.I.: Bonnard
Notes: Exhibited: Southampton Art Gallery, Southampton, UK, from 1952; 'Pierre Bonnard', Royal Academy, London, UK, 06 January 1966 - 06 March 1966 (no. 54); 'French Impressionism: Treasures from the Midlands', Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK, 07 June 1991 - 18 August 1991; 'Pierre Bonnard: Dialogues', Von der Haydt-Museum, Wuppertal, Germany, 12 September 2010 - 31 January 2011: 'Painting Childhood: From Holbein to Freud', Compton Verney, UK, 16 March - 16 June 2019
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