I love dogs, and there was something about the expression in this dog’s face in Woman and Dog at Table that I recognised well.
As for the painting, it, too, appears to be a real scene from artist Pierre Bonnard’s life. Bonnard was also a dog lover, specifically an owner of dachshunds, and a substantial amount of his works featured dogs. Here’s Still Life with Dog (c.1912), The Dogs (1893), Women with a Dog (1891), Woman with Dog (1922), and Fruit and Fruit Dishes (c. 1930) where a cat and a dog photobomb the still life. The Phillips Collection has a swag of Bonnard’s work here.
The Barnes Foundation names Marthe de Mรฉligny, Pierre Bonnard’s companion, and later wife, as the woman in this painting. She’s dressed for the cold. At the background of the Paris dining room are two folding screens “which seem to interact with the main scene and blur the boundary between foreground and background”.
Unfortunately, it says nothing about what type of dog it is, nor its name. Interestingly, since 1926, pedigree dogs in France born in the same year must have a name beginning with the same letter.
More of my ekphrastic poetry here. More on free verse here.
Woman and Dog at Table
For being a good boy
an old boy, a patient boy,
the dog, whoโs sniffed tea-tree
wattle, sheoak, seaberry,
saltbush, paperbark, grasses,
sand, cicadas,
and now cake,
mapping his own route
through sand
and mist and mountains,
under kitchen tables,
around fireplaces,
asking for nothing
but to be told and trained
sit, stand, stay, twirl,
leave it, fetch,
the dog is offered treats
from the table, from
the womanโs cold fingers,
his cold nose twitching.
Toast. Cheese. He treats
them as gently as gems.
Not begged for, earned.
ยฉelsp 2026
YouTube version:
Leave a Reply