Bras gauche de la Bièvre, boulevard Arago

Bras gauche de la Bièvre, boulevard Arago shows the left branch of the Bièvre river where it passed under the boulevard Arago in the 13th arrondissement of Paris — an urban waterway in the process of being absorbed into the expanding industrial city. Bonneton's series of Bièvre paintings constitutes an invaluable visual archive of a river that was entirely covered over between 1910 and 1912, its course integrated into the city's sewer system. The Musée Carnavalet's collection of his work preserves images of a Paris that disappeared within a decade of their making.

The riverbank composition is handled with modest directness — masonry walls, the water channel, and a glimpse of sky. The palette is restricted to the greys and browns of urban stone and earth. Paint handling is factual rather than expressive, prioritizing topographical record.