The brothers Bernheim-Jeune

Painted in 1920 and held at the Musée d'Orsay, this double portrait of the brothers Josse and Gaston Bernheim-Jeune documents Bonnard's relationship with his primary dealers. The Bernheim-Jeune gallery had been handling Bonnard's work since 1906 and the brothers — one of the most prominent dealer families in Paris — were both patrons and social presences in his life. The double portrait commission gave Bonnard the opportunity to paint a formal work that combines his intimiste environmental sensitivity with the conventions of commissioned portraiture. The Orsay holding makes this work a canonical statement of the artist-dealer relationship in early twentieth-century French art.

The two brothers are arranged in a domestic or gallery setting, their individual presences balanced within the composition. Bonnard's mature technique deploys warm domestic colour around the formally dressed figures. The handling is more precisely characterising than in pure domestic subjects.