French Israeli artist Nathanaëlle Herbelin presents a gentle dialogue with French artist Pierre Bonnard’s painting "Woman with a Cat" from 1912, long housed at Musée d'Orsay in Paris, but swaps nostalgia for a present-tense, female gaze. Here, the cat’s mischievous agency eclipses its human (now more motif than muse) while the everyday rituals of eating, caretaking, and sharing space with an animal become the drama. The square canvas frames a quiet, domestic scene. A young woman, the artist's sister Emmanuelle, with long straight brown hair sits at a small dining table draped in a pale cloth as wooden chair back peeks at the edge. Her posture is soft but alert, gaze lovingly lowered toward a flamboyant cat, Efi, poised like a tiny monarch at table height. A used plates, cupsof coffee, and a jar of honey sit near a bowl of milk with a spoon and an hard-boiled egg holder that might be the cat’s true quarry. Lighting is even and close, flattening perspective so tabletop, wall, and body read as adjoining planes. Herbelin's brushwork is tender and economical as warm earths and chalky whites mingle with midnight accents, recalling Nabi palettes while feeling entirely contemporary. The gray and white tabby cat’s arched neck and contentment with have her ears scratch becomes the liveliest line in the room, pulling the viewer’s attention across the table’s quiet geometry to this intimate exchange of appetite, affection, and routine. Emmanuelle’s profile and the spare tabletop distill the scene into shapes and pulses of color. Made for Herbelin’s 2024 Orsay contemporary exhibition “Être ici est une splendeur,” where her canvases were shown alongside the Nabis, the work typifies her approach of intimate interiors, pared-down drawing, and a chromatic hush that feels like memory held in the hand. Born in Israel in 1989 and trained at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Herbelin's paintings live in the present, mapping tenderness, kinship, and care onto contemporary life.
"Emmanuelle et Efi" by Nathanaëlle Herbelin (French-Israeli) – Oil on canvas / 2024 – Musée d’Orsay (Paris, France) #WomenInArt #art #artText #artwork #MuseeOrsay #WomanArtist #NathanaelleHerbelin #NathanaëlleHerbelin #Herbelin #WomensArt #LesNabis #Muséed'Orsay #IsraeliArtist #CatArt #WomenArtists
