3-002-446 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Old Woman with Copper Pot, 1862. Whether painting in oils or watercolors, Bonvin frequently presented intimate views of solitary figures set against a neutral, interior background. An elderly peasant woman is represented seated on ladderback armchair that is turned at a slight angle. In her lap, she holds a copper warming pot upon which she rests her gnarled hands. The artist has employed his customary muted palette, limited to browns, grays, reds, and blacks with small areas of yellow and white. In this instance, the subject's intensely white headdress and her colorful shawl sharply contrast with her otherwise somber attire. The same model posed for Bonvin's drawing "Femme à la lampe" (1864), in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. The gleaming copper pot also occurred in an oil painting, "Le banc des pauvres" (1864), now in the Musée de Montpellier, and in two drawings of the same year.