Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
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Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

Le Manoir du Jas de Bouffan (recto); Portrait du père de l'artiste (verso)

Details
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
Le Manoir du Jas de Bouffan (recto); Portrait du père de l'artiste (verso)
gouache and watercolour on paper (recto); pencil on paper (verso)
9 1/2 x 11 7/8 in. (24.3 x 30.1 cm.)
Executed circa 1870
Provenance
Paul Cézanne, Paris, by descent from the artist by 1947.
Jean-Pierre Cézanne, Paris, by descent from the above, 1947.
Anonymous sale, Galerie Motte, Geneva, 2 March 1973, lot 48.
Bruno Riffeser, Milan.
Private collection, Europe, by whom acquired from the above, and thence by descent; sale, Christie's, London, 28 June 2000, lot 14.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.
Literature
G. Rivière, La Maître Paul Cézanne, Paris, 1923, p. 201 (titled 'Le Jas de Bouffan').
G. Rivière, Cézanne, le peintre solitaire, Paris, 1933, p. 108 (titled 'Le Jas de Bouffan').
L. Venturi, Cézanne, son art, son oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1936, no. 817, p. 239 (illustrated vol. II, pl. 269).
"En Provence avec Cézanne" in L'Art Sacré, nos. 7/8, March - April 1956 (illustrated p. 30).
J. Rewald, Paul Cézanne, The Watercolours, A Catalogue Raisonné, London, 1983, no. 22, p. 87 (illustrated pl. 22).
Exhibited
Paris, Salon d'Automne, 5e Exposition, Exposition Rétrospective de Cézanne, October 1907, no. 34.
Paris, Galerie Renou & Colle, Aquarelles et baignades de Cézanne, June 1935.
Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, Cézanne, May - October 1936, no. 115, pp. 125-126.
New York, Valentine [Dudensing] Gallery, Cézanne watercolors, Renoir drawings, January 1937, no. 7.
Paris, Galerie Baugin, Aquarelles de Cézanne, May - June 1950, no. 5.
Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Cézanne, Aquarelliste et Peintre, May - July 1960, no. 1.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Cézanne in Provence, January - May 2006, no. 20, p. 84 (illustrated p. 106); this exhibition later travelled to Aix-en-Provence, Musée Granet.
Special Notice
These lots have been imported from outside the EU for sale using a Temporary Import regime. Import VAT is payable (at 5%) on the Hammer price. VAT is also payable (at 20%) on the buyer’s Premium on a VAT inclusive basis. When a buyer of such a lot has registered an EU address but wishes to export the lot or complete the import into another EU country, he must advise Christie's immediately after the auction.
Sale Room Notice
Please note that this work will be included in the forthcoming online catalogue raisonné Paul Cézanne's watercolors, under the direction of Walter Feilchenfeldt, David Nash and Jayne Warman and is not currently online, as suggested in the last line of literature in the printed catalogue.

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Jessica Brook
Jessica Brook

Lot Essay

This work will be included in the forthcoming online catalogue raisonné Paul Cézanne's watercolors, under the direction of Walter Feilchenfeldt, David Nash and Jayne Warman.

Le manoir du Jas de Bouffan, executed by Cézanne in the early 1870s, depicts his family home in Aix-en-Provence. Bought by his father in 1859 with the proceeds from his successful banking business, the Jas de Bouffan and its thirty-seven acres of land was a favourite motif for Cézanne throughout most of his career. The fluidity of the watercolour medium, together with the felicity with which he handled it, meant that Cézanne often turned to watercolour at this stage of his career as a means of 'laying in' a subject which he later tackled in oil. Although there is a closely related oil of this subject dated by Rewald circa 1877, the present work not only depicts a different season to that of the oil, but also feels in its fully- resolved composition and individual autumnal atmosphere, an independent piece.

According to Rivière (1923, p.201), Cézanne thought so highly of the importance of Le Manoir du Jas de Bouffan that he submitted the work to the 1875 Salon D’Automne, but with their usual intractability as far as Cézanne was concerned, the work was refused. The importance of the work was posthumously confirmed when it was exhibited at the Salon D’Automne in 1907, the year after Cézanne’s death, in his first major retrospective.

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