The Exit of the bath

The Exit of the Bath from 1926 captures the moment of transition between immersion and return to the ordinary world — Marthe stepping out of the bathtub and back into the domestic room. This liminal moment interested Bonnard precisely because of its transitional quality, the figure neither fully in one state nor another. He painted similar moments of exit and entry throughout his career, finding in the threshold between private bodily experience and domestic space a richness of color and psychology. The canvas's current whereabouts are not listed, suggesting it passed into private hands at some point in its exhibition history.

The wet body against the dry surfaces of the bathroom floor and walls creates a contrast in texture that Bonnard translates into paint by varying stroke length and density. The color temperature shifts between the warm nude and the cooler tile and wall surfaces.