Portrait d’Ambroise Vollard au chat by Pierre Bonnard — Free Download

Portrait d’Ambroise Vollard au chat — History & Facts

The art dealer Ambroise Vollard sits hunched in a room crowded with paintings, a small cat on his lap. The cat was a trick: Pierre Bonnard put it there to keep his model from dozing off during the sittings, and Vollard's drooping eye betrays the drowsiness that everyone who knew him was familiar with. The dealer is surrounded by his stock: Cézanne's portrait of Alfred Hauge leans against the fireplace at left, and Renoir's Reclining Women hangs on the back wall. Bonnard met Vollard through Maurice Denis in 1893 and painted him several times; this portrait, from about 1924, stands out for its large size. It is in the Petit Palais, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris.