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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming online catalogue raisonné of Paul Cézanne's watercolours, under the direction of Walter Feilchenfeldt, David Nash and Jayne Warman.
Dated circa 1880, Laveuses was executed by Paul Cézanne as part of an important group of twenty watercolours included in the first show of his work organized in the United States, where it appeared as Washerwomen at work at one end of a floatboat on a river. The exhibition was held in March 1911 in Alfred Stieglitz’s Photo Secession Gallery in New York, and consisted exclusively of works lent by the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris (J. Rewald, Paul Cézanne: The Watercolours, London, 1983, p. 109).
In the present work, the exquisite application of mosaic-like touches, in taupe and light green tones, imbues the three washers at the centre of the scene with a luminous tranquillity that pervades the whole scene. The subtle, elegant colours of Laveuses is typical of the period that followed Cézanne’s artistic collaboration with Camille Pissarro, with whom he always shared a reciprocal admiration. The two began working alongside each other in 1873 in Pontoise, outside Paris; they shared the same motifs: mainly village streets, houses, and landscapes, but they did not work on the same projects, and their styles remained distinctive.
‘Under the influence of the ‘humble and colossal’ Pissarro, Cézanne abandoned the dramatic and impassioned style of his youth and became increasingly attentive to the nuances of light and colour to be found in nature. His palette brightened to include light greens, yellows, greys and vibrant reds and blues; and the prevailing tonality of his pictures lightened and acquired a new subtlety of range in response to the variegated play of light he observed before him. […] The delicacy and luminosity of this approach led to the creation of Cézanne’s most purely Impressionist pictures’ (Exh. cat., Cézanne and Poussin, Edinburgh, 1990, p. 47).
Pastoral themes, of which the subject of Laveuses is a clear example, dominated Cézanne’s works of the late 1870s; in fact, if among the impressionists, Monet and Sisley could be considered as ‘painters of water’, Cézanne and Pissarro were rather described as ‘painters of the earth’. In the present work, the artist seems to have let the colours fall into pre-drawn compartments, following a process completely foreign to oil paintings, that pervades the figures of the washers with an all-embracing bareness.
As Rewald puts it ‘To draw and then enrich with tints an image of this kind, was something that could be achieved only in pencil and watercolour.’ (J. Rewald, ibid., pp. 25-26), and in fact Cézanne’s watercolours are rarely related to oils, and almost never to be considered preparatory studies for these. There are moments in the artist’s career where analogies between the two mediums are to be found, but more often his watercolours follow their own paths and are usually devoted to unrelated subjects. In fact, it was only in his very last years that Cézanne began frequently to devote watercolours and paintings to identical motifs.
Executed circa 1880, Laveuses depicts three washers immersed in a tranquil, prosaic corner of the French countryside, a subject he very rarely repeated within his œuvre. The three women, drawn in harmonious yet strong pencil lines, are surrounded by spare, luminous strokes of watercolour, which give the scene am atmosphere of serene poetry and grandeur. The large scale of the sheet, on which the composition is rendered with an exquisite economy of means, contributes to the hieratic sense that pervades the present work.
Included in most of the landmark exhibitions dedicated by pivotal galleries and museums -such as Bernheim-Jeune and the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris- to the artist’s celebrated medium, the present watercolour comes to the market after being for several decades in the same private collection.
Dated circa 1880, Laveuses was executed by Paul Cézanne as part of an important group of twenty watercolours included in the first show of his work organized in the United States, where it appeared as Washerwomen at work at one end of a floatboat on a river. The exhibition was held in March 1911 in Alfred Stieglitz’s Photo Secession Gallery in New York, and consisted exclusively of works lent by the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris (J. Rewald, Paul Cézanne: The Watercolours, London, 1983, p. 109).
In the present work, the exquisite application of mosaic-like touches, in taupe and light green tones, imbues the three washers at the centre of the scene with a luminous tranquillity that pervades the whole scene. The subtle, elegant colours of Laveuses is typical of the period that followed Cézanne’s artistic collaboration with Camille Pissarro, with whom he always shared a reciprocal admiration. The two began working alongside each other in 1873 in Pontoise, outside Paris; they shared the same motifs: mainly village streets, houses, and landscapes, but they did not work on the same projects, and their styles remained distinctive.
‘Under the influence of the ‘humble and colossal’ Pissarro, Cézanne abandoned the dramatic and impassioned style of his youth and became increasingly attentive to the nuances of light and colour to be found in nature. His palette brightened to include light greens, yellows, greys and vibrant reds and blues; and the prevailing tonality of his pictures lightened and acquired a new subtlety of range in response to the variegated play of light he observed before him. […] The delicacy and luminosity of this approach led to the creation of Cézanne’s most purely Impressionist pictures’ (Exh. cat., Cézanne and Poussin, Edinburgh, 1990, p. 47).
Pastoral themes, of which the subject of Laveuses is a clear example, dominated Cézanne’s works of the late 1870s; in fact, if among the impressionists, Monet and Sisley could be considered as ‘painters of water’, Cézanne and Pissarro were rather described as ‘painters of the earth’. In the present work, the artist seems to have let the colours fall into pre-drawn compartments, following a process completely foreign to oil paintings, that pervades the figures of the washers with an all-embracing bareness.
As Rewald puts it ‘To draw and then enrich with tints an image of this kind, was something that could be achieved only in pencil and watercolour.’ (J. Rewald, ibid., pp. 25-26), and in fact Cézanne’s watercolours are rarely related to oils, and almost never to be considered preparatory studies for these. There are moments in the artist’s career where analogies between the two mediums are to be found, but more often his watercolours follow their own paths and are usually devoted to unrelated subjects. In fact, it was only in his very last years that Cézanne began frequently to devote watercolours and paintings to identical motifs.
Executed circa 1880, Laveuses depicts three washers immersed in a tranquil, prosaic corner of the French countryside, a subject he very rarely repeated within his œuvre. The three women, drawn in harmonious yet strong pencil lines, are surrounded by spare, luminous strokes of watercolour, which give the scene am atmosphere of serene poetry and grandeur. The large scale of the sheet, on which the composition is rendered with an exquisite economy of means, contributes to the hieratic sense that pervades the present work.
Included in most of the landmark exhibitions dedicated by pivotal galleries and museums -such as Bernheim-Jeune and the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris- to the artist’s celebrated medium, the present watercolour comes to the market after being for several decades in the same private collection.