Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

Etude de personnage, vu de dos (recto); Etudes d'une baigneuse s'essuyant et Tête de Madame Cézanne (verso)

Details

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
Etude de personnage, vu de dos (recto); Etudes d'une baigneuse s'essuyant et Tête de Madame Cézanne (verso)
pencil on paper (recto and verso)
4 x 8 in. (12.2 x 21.3 cm.)
Drawn circa 1879-1882 (recto); drawn circa 1883-1885 (verso)

Provenance

Paul Cézanne fils, Paris.
Paul Guillaume, Paris, by whom acquired from the above, and thence to his estate.
Adrien Chappuis, Tresserve, by whom acquired from the above in 1934, and thence by descent to the Barut family, Chambéry; sale, Christie's London, 26 June 2003, lot 330.
Acquired at the above sale by the previous owner; sale, Christie's, London, 9 February 2006, lot 548.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Literature

L. Venturi, Cézanne, son art-son oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1936, no. 1295 (recto and verso) (verso illustrated vol. II pl. 352).
W. Andersen, Cézanne's Portrait Drawings, Cambridge and London, 1970, no. 60, p. 32 (detail of verso illustrated p. 92; dated '1882-1883').
A. Chappuis, The Drawings of Paul Cézanne, A Catalogue raisonné, vol. I, London, 1973, no. 655, p. 179 (recto); no. 520, p. 154 (verso) (illustrated vol. II, no. 655 and 520, detail). M.L. Krumrine (ed.), exh. cat., Paul Cézanne. The Bathers, Kunstmuseum, Basel, 1989 (verso illustrated p. 56).
Exh. cat. Cézanne, les années de jeunesse 1859-1872, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 1989 (verso illustrated p. 17).

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Lot Essay

This is a unique frieze-like drawing, in fact, a carefully constructed sequence of bathers and an impressive variation on the theme. To the right of these is a study of the head of Mme Cézanne which is related to the portrait Madame Cézanne en robe rayée (Rewald, no. 536; sale Christie's New York, 3 November 1982, lot 6; Yokohama Museum of Art, Tokyo).

The recto study shows an unidentified man wearing a striped shirt seen from behind. According to Chapuis (ibid.), the inscription '43 chez Vollard' is probably in the hand of the artist's son Paul.

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