Private Collection, California, circa 1970

 Jean and Henry Dauberville, Bonnard, Catalogue Raisonné de L'Oeuvre Peint, 1940-1947 et Supplément 1887-1939, vol. IV, Paris, 1974, no. 🌊1919, illuꦚstrated p. 266

In the present work Bonnard depicts a contemplative woman relaxing on her chaise lounge in an interior scene.  The sitter of this picture is unknown, however the artist preferred to use close friends, such as Misia Godebska and his wife, Marthe, as models. According to Nicholas Watkins, "there was often a conflict between the twin demands of achieving a likeness and making a painting"(Bonnard, London, 1🌞994, p. 103). Although Bonnard did receive several official commissions at this time, most of the portraits that he painted were of unamed sitters. Portraiture did present him with some problems. Even in close-up studies his decorative style would always involve the subjugation of individual character in the interests of ꦫthe overall mood. 

Around the time the present work was completed, Bonnard was withdrawing from Paris more and more and spending his time traveling and in the countryside, particularly in the south of France.  Both Matisse and Bonnard drew much inspiration from the brilliant light and colors of the south of France, where the two lived and worked during the most oroductive years of their careers. Elderfield discusses the similarities of these artists’ interior scenes and the sensuality inherent in their work: “Matisse and Bonnard do not only cause intended workings of visual perception to be represented for the beholder, they also cause them to serve a representational purpose. But they are able to do this only because they allow the painting’s own sensational visual character to be noticed”.  Although Bonnard and Matisse were receiving similar influences, they chose to go in opposite directions of one another stylistically.  Nicholas Watkins writes of this period “. . . . he [Bonnard] remained seemingly untouched by the need to find an equivalent for the heady sensations of the south in exuberant brushstrokes and explosive combination of color”. Thus we see in Femme assise Bonnard embracing the atmospheric and naturalistic, characteristics that defined I🌃mpressionism rather than of the Nabi with which he was associated early in his career.