Nude at the Toilet Table

Nude at the Toilet Table from 1925 returns to the dressing table setting Bonnard had explored as early as 1908, here bringing his fully mature chromatic approach to the same subject. The toilet table with its mirrors, bottles, and personal objects creates a still-life within the figure painting — two genres coexisting in the same canvas. Bonnard's Nabis training had taught him to treat the picture surface as an autonomous decorative entity rather than a window onto represented space, and works like this fulfill that lesson completely: the painting as a patterned field of color where figure and object are equally part of the decorative scheme.

The reflective surfaces of mirror and glass bottles introduce multiple small zones of contrasting color within the painting's field, creating a jeweled quality. The toilet table objects are painted with the same vivid presence as the figure herself.