Due to building measures for the expansion of the Städel Museum, several artworks from the collection cannot be shown at the moment. These paintings were lent to exhibitions abroad but can presumably be seen again at the Städel Museum in the summer of 2011.

Represented in almost naturalistic manner with regard to her corporality and skin surface, the female nude was one of the primary motifs in the extensive oeuvre of this French painter, who co-founded Post-Impressionist group “Les Nabis” (The Prophets) in Paris in 1890. Fascinated by Japanese woodcuts – which he and his fellow artists studied – as well as by Paul Gauguin, Bonnard depicts a naked women lying on a bed in a confined and indiscreet view and an unusual perspective, organizing the picture surface with the arabesque of her contour and the chequered background. This work serves well to explain why Bonnard is considered a pioneer of modern poster art.