Family Scene

Pierre Bonnard|André Marty

March 30, 1893 · Color lithograph · Drawings and Prints

Bonnard’s inclusion of his own profile at lower right, against the checkered pattern of his sister Andrée’s dress, demonstrates his delight in the close observation of his first nephew, Jean, born in May 1892. He wrote to his friend Edouard Vuillard, "I’m a thousand times more blown away by my nephew’s cute little face than by all that I’ve seen in my travels." The narrow, vertical format and oblique, close-up perspective of this composition are likely adopted from Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts, examples of which were shown in a landmark exhibition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1890. Mary Cassatt’s own adaptation of the Japanese aesthetic and focus on domestic subject matter in her color prints exhibited the following year also likely inspired Bonnard.

Artist

Pierre Bonnard|André Marty

Date

March 30, 1893

Medium

Color lithograph

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1922