Siesta
Pierre Bonnard (1867 to 1947) · 1900
A woman lies face down on an unmade bed in a sunlit room, one leg drawn up, her head turned away, in the deep sleep of a summer afternoon. Clothes are thrown over a chair, a small dog curls up on the floor, and the wallpaper and bedclothes dissolve into a warm haze of ochre, pink and white. The woman is Marthe Boursin, whom Bonnard met in 1893 and who would be his companion and model for the rest of his life. He painted her hundreds of times, in the bath, at the table, dressing and undressing, and this early picture is one of the most intimate and most frank.
Bonnard was fascinated by photography, and around this time he took a series of snapshots of Marthe in their apartment with the sunlight pouring in. The painting grows out of those images but transforms them. Look at the pose: it echoes the Sleeping Hermaphrodite, the famous ancient marble in the Louvre, so that a private moment becomes a quotation from classical art. The paint is thin and soft, laid on in warm browns and creams that seem to glow from inside, and the outlines are blurred as if seen through half closed eyes. There is a strong diagonal from the top left to the bottom right, along the body and the bed, that gives the lazy scene a hidden structure.
The painting has a distinguished history. It was bought by the dealer Ambroise Vollard, passed to Gertrude and Leo Stein in Paris, who later swapped it for a Renoir, and belonged to Kenneth Clark in London before Melbourne bought it through the Felton Bequest in 1949. It matters as one of the finest early Bonnards anywhere and as a bridge between the Impressionists and the intimate domestic painting of the twentieth century. The memorable detail is the dog, curled up in the lower right corner, sharing the siesta with its mistress.
Did You Know? Gertrude and Leo Stein once owned the painting and traded it away for a Renoir.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.