He was a member of the Institute, one of the 14 painters who had regulatory control over the Academy des Beaux Arts and along these lines the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He had companions and associations among the autonomous artists of his time also, for example, Edgar Degas, whom he met amid his stay in Rome and who painted two portraits of Bonnat, and Édouard Manet, who shared his inclination for Spanish painting. He upheld Auguste Rodin's appointment for the Institut and defended Gustave Courbet's entries to the salon. The artists Bonnant taught or influenced is a who's who of the art world.