Nude in front of the fireplace

Nude in Front of the Fireplace from 1919, held at the Annonciade Museum in Saint-Tropez, places the nude in a winter domestic setting — the fireplace providing warmth both literally and chromatically — rather than the summer-light bathroom that dominates much of Bonnard's nude production. The Annonciade Museum was established in the former chapel of a Franciscan convent in Saint-Tropez, repurposed as an art museum in 1922 by the art dealer Georges Grammont to house his collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works; Bonnard and Signac were among the first major donors and the museum became an important centre for the South of France artistic tradition. The winter firelit nude connects to a long tradition of artificial light subjects — de La Tour's candlelit scenes, Rembrandt's intimate domestic lights — but Bonnard's treatment is entirely modern in its concern with the chromatic consequences of firelight on flesh rather than the moral or religious significance of the light source.

The firelight creates an unusually warm, directional light source in Bonnard's typically diffused interior scenes. The figure is rendered in ochres and pinks against the deeper reds of the fire surround, with the surrounding room receding into cooler shadows.