Pierre Bonnard Lot n° 3

Pierre Bonnard La Seine à Vernon Around 1922 Oil on canvas, relined. 37.8 x 60.1 cm. Framed. Signed 'Bonnard' in green lower left. - In very good, fresh condition. Dauberville 1118 Provenance Estate of the artist (no. 353); Collection Aline et Marguerite Bowers, Paris (nieces of the artist); Arthur Tooth & Sons, London; Galerie Schmit, Paris; Christie's, London, June 27, 2000, lot 227; Galerie Salis & Vertes, Salzburg (2000); Corboud Collection, on permanent loan from the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum - Fondation Corboud, Cologne, inv. no. dep. 734 (with label on the reverse) Exhibitions Salzburg 2000 (Galerie Salis & Vertes), "Kunststücke. From Corot to Mirò. Festspielaustellung 2000, cat. 15, with color illus.; Cologne 2001 (Wallraf-Richartz-Museum - Fondation Corboud), Miracle de Couleur, p. 404f., with color illus. Literature Barbara Schaefer, The Impressionists and their Successors. The Paintings of the Fondation Corboud, Cologne 2006, p. 101 In August 1912, Pierre Bonnard bought the country house "La Roulotte", "Gypsy Carriage", in Vernon, a small town on the Seine northwest of Paris. Like Claude Monet, who lived not far from Vernon in Giverny and with whom he had a friendly relationship, he often went out by boat and painted the tranquil river landscape. As with Monet before him, the wooded course of the river exerted a great fascination on Bonnard for years. For the painting "La Seine à Vernon", Bonnard painted the slowly flowing river, the lush vegetation on the left and the opposite bank from a position on the riverbank. The topographical elements are greatly simplified and combined into green or blue color zones. He only succeeded in separating and defining the individual elements of the picture by means of color nuances, such as a scale of green and violet tones. The atmospheric landscape painting thus belongs to a group of works in which Bonnard had broken away from the aesthetics of the "Nabis" and returned to a bright and dissolved application of color in the spirit of the Impressionists. In these landscapes, he returned stylistically closer to his role model and friend Monet by dissolving the motifs with short strokes and small fields of color. With colorful refinement, long-stemmed bushes, mighty trees and small waves on the calmly flowing river appear before our eyes. The slightly cloudy, light blue sky contributes to the cheerful mood of a summer's day.