The woman is probably Marthe Bonnard, the artist's wife. She is looking towards a dog whose muzzle is faintly visible on the left, and seems to be preparing its food in a bowl.

A similar3„4drawing3„4in coloured chalks, said to have been made in 1929, is reproduced in T. Natanson,3„4Le Bonnard que je propose3„4(Geneva 1951), pl.77.

This painting was bought as a result of the Courtauld Fund. In January 1924 the wealthy textile manufacturer Samuel Courtauld gave the large sum of £50,000 to create a trust for buying Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works for the Tate Gallery. Between 1924 and 1927 the Trust bought nineteen paintings by artists such as Edouard Manet, Paul Gauguin, Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne. This donation transformed the Tate?s Collection of modern art by non-British artists. This significant painting was acquired only a year after it was made, and was the first work by Bonnard to enter the Tate Collection. 

N041343„4La Table3„4(The Table) 1925

Inscribed 'Bonnard' b.r.

Presented by the Trustees of the Courtauld Fund 1926
Prov:3„4With Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (purchased from the artist); through Independent Gallery, London; the Trustees of the Courtauld Fund
Exh:3„4RSA, Edinburgh, April-August 1932 (211); RSA, Edinburgh, April-August 1946 (104);3„4Samuel Courtauld Memorial Exhibition, Tate Gallery, May-September 1948 (1);3„4Bonnard and his Environment, Museum of Modern Art, New York, October-November 1964 (34, repr.); Art Institute of Chicago, January-February 1965 (34, repr.); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, March-May 1965 (34, repr.);3„4Pierre Bonnard, RA, London, January-March 1966 (179)
Lit:3„4Douglas Cooper,3„4The Courtauld Collection3„4(London 1954), No.1, p.83, repr. pl.64; Jean and Henry Dauberville,3„4Bonnard3„4(Paris 1973), No.1310, Vol.3, p.255, repr. p.254 and facing colour plate
Repr:3„4Burlington Magazine, XLVIII, 1926, p.64

Published in:
Ronald Alley,3„4Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.66-7, reproduced p.66