The Dressing Room

Painted in 1914 and held at the Metropolitan Museum, this dressing room scene belongs to Bonnard's extended exploration of intimate feminine space — the private room where women dress, groom, and inhabit themselves. By 1914 Bonnard was living with Marthe de Méligny (born Maria Boursin), his companion since 1893 and eventual wife, who was the subject of hundreds of his works. The dressing room and bathroom, where Marthe spent long periods bathing due to a skin condition she developed, became Bonnard's central domestic subjects. This work precedes his most famous series of bathroom nudes but already shows the chromatic warmth and spatial intimacy characteristic of his domestic interior practice.

Warm pinks, creams, and muted golds animate the intimate space. Mirrors and reflective surfaces create spatial ambiguity. The handling is fluid and light-saturated, the brushwork dissolving solid forms in a shimmer of indoor light.