The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 19, 2024

Houses in the Courtyard

Houses in the Courtyard

1899
(French, 1867–1947)
France, 19th century
color lithograph
Sheet: 53.4 x 40.3 cm (21 x 15 7/8 in.); Image: 34.5 x 25.7 cm (13 9/16 x 10 1/8 in.)
Gift of the Hanna Fund 1948.156.4
Catalogue raisonné: Bouvet 61
Location: not on view

Description

This suite of color lithographs collected Pierre Bonnard’s observations of city life, ranging from animated street scenes to distant observations glimpsed from the artist’s Montmartre studio window. Rather than memorializing the famous monuments of Paris, Bonnard preferred to depict small neighborhood scenes populated by urbanites shopping and strolling and by vendors selling their wares. The setting for one of the prints is the second-largest public park in Paris, the Bois de Boulogne, which was a popular place for families to relax, stroll, and enjoy carriage rides around the lakes. Two prints are nocturnal scenes in which gaslight emanating from shop windows is reflected on the wet streets, creating passages of bright yellow in the otherwise dark compositions. Bonnard’s favorite subjects, such as the Parisienne—a young, fashionable, modern woman—as well as children and dogs, appear repeatedly throughout the prints in the suite.
  • The Art Institute of Chicago
  • Brown, Heather Lemonedes. “The Nabi City.” In Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris, 1889-1900. Mary Weaver Chapin and Heather Lemonedes Brown, 222-261. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2021. Mentioned: P. 230; Reproduced: P. 251, no. 165
  • Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris, 1889–1900. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (co-organizer) (July 1-September 19, 2021).
    Prints by Toulouse-Lautrec and Bonnard. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 3, 1985-March 2, 1986).
    Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 3, 1958-October 11, 1959).
  • {{cite web|title=Houses in the Courtyard|url=false|author=Pierre Bonnard, Published by Ambroise Vollard; Printed by Auguste Clot|year=1899|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1948.156.4