T he present work is a portrait of Marthe, the artist’s most important sitter, accompanied by her dachshund Ubu. Born in Saint-Amand-Montrond as Maria Boursin, Marthe moved to Paris to work and changed her name to Marthe de Méligny. She met Bonnard in Paris in 1893 and quickly became his model, muse and lover. Executed the year the couple finally married in 1925, Femme au chien (Marthe Bonnard) is a celebration of their closeness and newly cemented domesticity.

Marthe represents the archetypal figure for Bonnard. Much like Picasso’s later depictions of his last great love Jacqueline Roque, his depictions of Marthe are not portraits rather she represents an every woman through whom he explores his wider artistic vision (see fig. 1) . As Gloria Groom explains: “Marthe represented the perfect synthesis of a real and ‘spectacular’ female type… As was typical in Bonnard’s art (and in that of the other Nabis), the actual woman is transformed into a feminine type, psychologically removed from his real relationship with her and adaptable to various scenarios” (Gloria Groom, “Bonnard’s Decorative Style: Shifting Boundaries” in Pierre Bonnard. Observing Nature (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2003, p. 92).

Femme au chien (Marthe Bonnard) was previously owned by Dr. Robert L. Goodale, a surgeon at the University of Minnesota who worked to develop many non-invasive medical procedures. A passionate scientist and philanthropist, he and his wife endowed a chair for minimally invasive procedure at the University of Minnesota Medical School to continue work in the field. He and his wife Katherine were also passionate about performing arts, particularly ballet and dance. Their gift of $3,400,000 to the Cowles Center for Dance and the Preforming Arts helped rebuild one of the center’s main theaters which now bears the couples name.