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Artwork Details
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Title:The Children's Meal
Artist:Pierre Bonnard (French, Fontenay-aux-Roses 1867–1947 Le Cannet)
Date:1895
Medium:Oil on paperboard, mounted on wood panel
Dimensions:23 3/8 × 29 1/4 in. (59.4 × 74.3 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of David Allen Devrishian, 1999
Object Number:1999.180.1
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): Bonnard / 95
the artist's nephew, Charles Terrasse, Paris; private collection, France; [Brame & Lorenceau, Paris, until 1999; sold in 1999 to Devrishian]; David Allen Devrishian, Fairfield, N. J. (1999; his gift to MMA)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Painters in Paris: 1895–1950," March 8–December 31, 2000, extended to January 14, 2001, unnumbered cat. (p. 60).
Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. "Picasso and the School of Paris: Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," September 14–November 24, 2002, no. 3.
Tokyo. Bunkamura Museum of Art. "Picasso and the School of Paris: Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," December 7, 2002–March 9, 2003, no. 3.
Cleveland Museum of Art. "Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris, 1889–1900," July 1–September 19, 2021, unnumbered cat. (pl. 5).
Portland, Ore. Portland Art Museum. "Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris, 1889–1900," October 24, 2021–January 23, 2022, unnumbered cat.
Fort Worth. Kimbell Art Museum. "Bonnard's Worlds," November 5, 2023–January 28, 2024, no. 33.
René-Marie. "Bonnard et son Époque." Le Point 24 (1943), ill. p. 19, as "La grand'mère, la mère et les deux petits-enfants".
Léon Werth. "Le Peintre." Pierre Bonnard. Paris, 1945, ill. p. 7 (color), as "La grand'mère, la mère et les deux petits-enfants," in a private collection.
Jean and Henry Dauberville. Bonnard: Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint. Vol. 1, 1888–1905. Paris, 1965, p. 156, no. 105, ill., as "La Grand'mère, la mère et les deux petits enfants".
Jean and Henry Dauberville. Bonnard: Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint révisé et augmenté, 1888–1905. 2nd rev. ed. [1st ed., 1965]. Paris, 1992, p. 156, no. 105, ill., as "La Grand'mère, la mère et les deux petits enfants".
Sabine Rewald in "Recent Acquisitions. A Selection: 1998–1999." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 57 (Fall 1999), pp. 48–49, ill. (color), identifies the setting as the dining room in Bonnard's family house, Le Clos, in the village of Le Grand-Lemps, and the figures as Bonnard's grandmother, Mme Frédéric Mertzdorff, his three-year old nephew, Jean, and his sister, Andrée Terrasse holding her two-year old son, Charles.
"A Selection of 1999 Museum Acquisitions." Apollo 150 (December 1999), ill. p. 43 (color).
William S. Lieberman inPicasso and the School of Paris: Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Exh. cat., Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art. [Tokyo], 2002, pp. 28, 32, 166, no. 3, ill. (color), notes the influence of Japanese ukiyo-e prints in this composition.
Laurence Castany. Dans la maison de Bonnard. Paris, 2012, pp. 55, 148, ill. pp. 54–55 (color, overall and detail).
Mary Weaver Chapin in Mary Weaver Chapin and Heather Lemonedes Brown. Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris, 1889–1900. Exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, 2021, pp. 42–43, 62–63, 263, colorpl. 5, identifies the sitter as the artist's mother, Elisabeth Bonnard, his sister, Andrée Terrasse, and her sons Jean and Charles.
Saskia Ooms in Mary Weaver Chapin and Heather Lemonedes Brown. Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris, 1889–1900. Exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, 2021, p. 141.
George T. M. Shackelford in George T. M. Shackelford with Elsa Smithgall. Bonnard's Worlds. Exh. cat., Kimbell Art Museum. Fort Worth, 2023, pp. 159–60, 250, no. 33, ill. p. 158 (color).
The Met's engagement with art from 1890 to today includes the acquisition and exhibition of works in a range of media, spanning movements in modernism to contemporary practices from across the globe.
Pierre Bonnard (French, Fontenay-aux-Roses 1867–1947 Le Cannet)
1930
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