In many ways, this still life from 1924 is not concerned primarily with the basket of fruit on a table, but instead with the properties of paint itself. In the previous decade, Bonnard – a founding member of the Nabis group of artists – had started to spend more time away from Paris and moved his attention to the domestic spaces of his modest home, first in Vernonnet and later in Le Cannet. Over the 35 between his move to the countryside in 1912, and his death in 1947, the artist concentrated increasingly on conveying the patterns and atmosphere of daily life, not always heeding visual reality, but rather pursuing the essence of light, texture and emotion. In order to attain the sensation of a subject, rather than its faithful reproduction, he often worked from studies or notes rather than from life, even with readily available subjects such as this pile of fruit.

The present work is exemplary of Bonnard’s production in the 1920s, showing his development away from the muted tones and flattened, decorative approach of the Nabis. Each individual fruit is constructed of visible, layered brushstrokes, with daubs of bold colours conveying their plump forms and complex interactions with light. The shadows and surface of the white tablecloth are also composed in a tactile, energetic manner. The lack of obvious focal point and close cropping – with the basket intersected by the right edge of the canvas – also reveals Bonnard’s indebtedness to Japanese art, a key reference point for the artist and his fellow Nabis. The tilted perspective and multiple viewpoints of Japanese paintings and ukiyo-e prints were qualities that the artist continued to investigate in these decades, albeit with an Impressionistic approach to colour and the materiality of paint, which resulted in vibrant paintings that teetered towards abstraction.