Pierre Bonnard

Aline Bowers, Paris (by descent from the artist)
Mr & Mrs Neison Harris, Chicago (acquired from the above on 18th February 1971)
Private Collection, USA (by descent from the above. Sale: Christie's, New York, 1st November 2005, lot 6)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

New York, Acquavella Galleries Inc., Pierre Bonnard, 1965, no. 15, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Marseille, Musée Cantini, Pierre Bonnard, 1967, no. 23, illustrated in the catalogue (as dating from circa 1930)
London, Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd., Pierre Bonnard, 1969, no. 7, illustrated in colour in the catalogue (as dating from circa 1925-30)

Jean & Henry Dauberville, Bonnard. Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, Paris, 1965, vol. II, no. 697, illustrated p. 262

The canvas is lined. There are spots and areas of retouching along all four edges, visible under ultra-violet light. Apart from a few tiny specks of paint loss, only visible at close inspection, this work is in good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate, although stronger and brighter in the original.
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Les Pots verts sur la terrasse was painted in 1912, during Bonnard's stay in Grasse, near Cannes in the south of France. Fascinated by the lush nature that surrounded him, in the present work he depicted a view from the balcony of villa Antoinette, which he rented during his sojourn in Grasse. His dealer Josse Bernheim-Jeune came to visit Bonnard several times, and took photographs of the beautiful villa Antoinette (fig. 1). During his stay in this region, Bonnard found inspiration for his paintings in his immediate surroundings, as he would later that year, when he moved into 'Ma Roulotte' in Vernonnet. He painted the present work, and another larger version (J. & H. Dauberville, op. cit., no. 698) showing the view from the balcony of the villa, surrounded by rich vegetation and palm trees, and the sea in the background.

 

As a landscape painter, Bonnard was always fascinated by light and colour, and in the present work he beautifully rendered the unique quality of light in the Mediterranean. As James Elliott observed: 'Bonnard was essentially a colorist. He devoted his main creative energies to wedding his sensations of color from nature to those from paint itself – sensations which he said thrilled and even bewildered him. Perceiving color with a highly developed sensitivity, he discovered new and unfamiliar effects from which he selected carefully, yet broadly and audaciously. [...] Whether in narrow range or multitudinous variety, the colours move across the surface of his paintings in constantly shifting interplay, lending an extraordinary fascination to common subject Familiar sights – the pervading greenness of a landscape, the intensification of color in objects on a lightly overcast day – are given vivid life' (J. Elliott, in Bonnard and His Environment (exhibition catalogue), Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1964, p. 25).

 

 

Fig. 1, Villa Antoinette in Grasse. Photograph by Josse Bernheim-Jeune