Tub in a mirror

Tub in a Mirror pursues the same preoccupation with doubled space that Bonnard explored in Mirror above a Washstand—using a reflective surface to present the bathroom from two viewpoints simultaneously, complicating the spatial coherence of the room while expanding the visual information available within a single canvas. The reflected tub is both the same object and a different image, slightly displaced in tone and angle, creating a subtle disorientation that Bonnard seems to have valued as an alternative to conventional perspectival depth. His bathroom mirrors are related to the larger tradition of mirror paintings from Velázquez's Rokeby Venus onward, but his interest is specifically in the domestic rather than the mythological dimension of self-reflection.

The mirror plane is typically marked by a slight shift in palette—reflected space is rendered in slightly cooler, more silvery tones than the directly observed space. Bonnard often allows the mirror's frame to establish a strong compositional vertical. The two spatial zones are integrated through shared pattern elements—tiles, towels, and fixtures—that appear in both direct and reflected form.