Atelier Bonnat was a private art studio in Paris led by the French painter Léon Bonnat during the late 19th century. The studio emerged from the French tradition of atelier d’élèves, where students organised a studio themselves and invited an established artist to serve as their mentor or patron. Unlike many other private studios, where the teacher charged tuition fees, Bonnat's studio largely functioned as a student-run collective where the role of the teacher was primarily honorary.

Bonnat was appointed in December 1866 to lead such a studio after Ernest Hébert left the position to become director of the French Academy in Rome. The studio opened in 1867 and was financed and administered largely by the students themselves. It was initially located on Rue de Laval in Montmartre, near Boulevard de Clichy, and later moved in 1875 to Impasse Hélène, close to Bonnat's own studio.

The studio attracted many international students who came to Paris for art studies, particularly from Scandinavia. The instruction followed the French academic tradition with a focus on careful observation of the model, strong light and shadow play (chiaroscuro), and simple, clear modelling of form. The students worked in a large studio illuminated by a high window, where the easels were arranged in concentric rows around the model's platform. The current model study at auction is likely executed by Berndt Lindholm, who was one of the first Finnish artists inspired by French plein air painting. Between 1863 and 1864, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf under Philip Röth and then in Karlsruhe under Hans Gude from 1865 to 1866. His studies abroad concluded with years in Paris at Atelier Bonnat, first from 1868 to 1870 and then again from 1873 to 1875.