Artwork Information

In the mid 1920s Pierre Bonnard became involved in producing a number of lithographs for the publisher Edmond Frapier, in Paris. The latter, following in the footsteps of Vollard, wished to make the works of selected major French artists available to those who could not afford to acquire paintings. These included works by Goya, Ingres, Gericault, Delacroix, Corot, Manet, Odilon Redon, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, Rouault, Maillol, Vlaminck and others. The medium of lithography lent itself to artists who had not trained per se as printmakers, as there was a pleasing immediacy about the act of drawing or painting directly on the lithographic stone. Bonnard drew on themes central to his career as a painter - focusing on intimate portraits of women. In La Coupe et le Compotier the still life elements on the table serve as a kind of frieze between the figures and the viewer, keeping them at arm's length.