La Fillette au chat

La Fillette au chat, at the Fondation Bemberg in Toulouse, shows a young girl with a cat and belongs to the cluster of domestic and garden scenes Bonnard produced in 1894 during his Nabis period. Children and animals were natural subjects for an artist whose aesthetic was built around the decorative pleasures of everyday domestic life — the patterned fabrics, the small movements, the accidental compositions of the intimate interior. The Fondation Bemberg holds several Bonnard works from this period, reflecting the collector's preference for the French intimist tradition.

Bonnard integrates the child and cat within a patterned environment that subordinates both figures to the overall decorative scheme. His handling in this period is relatively spare — forms defined by outline and flat colour rather than the lush chromatic impasto of his later work — reflecting the graphic lessons of his poster and print design.