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Lot Essay
This sheet is page XLII from the second of two Cézanne sketchbooks that Adrien Chappuis (op. cit.) acquired in 1934 from the estate of Paul Guillaume and subsequently broke up. The figure of a fully-clothed man appears to be related to the singing bald gentleman, perhaps a surrogate for the artist, who figures in the two watercolor versions of La partie de campagne (Rewald watercolors, nos. 45 and 46; dated circa 1875).
The image of the nude boy posed as a bather, and the head of the boy on the verso, both generally believed to be the artist's son Paul, figures in one of the more enduring mysteries in Cézanne scholarship, the dating of the oil painting Baigneur aux bras écartés (Rewald painting, no. 370; dated 1877-1878). There is a second sheet that contains drawings of Paul's head and the boy in the bather's pose (Chappuis, no. 713; dated circa 1878). However, in the oil painting the boy appears to be a rather muscular adolescent, whereas Paul was only about 6 years old at the time. Consequently, Lionello Venturi ascribed a date of 1885-1887 to the painting, and several other recent commentators have concurred. Chappuis dates the present drawing to 1883-1886.
The dating of the drawings is complicated by the fact that Cézanne would often add sketches at a later date to a sheet he had previously worked on, and not infrequently repeated subjects on different sheets, sometimes drawing them years apart. The artist loved his son very dearly, and drew him many times as he was growing up.
The image of the nude boy posed as a bather, and the head of the boy on the verso, both generally believed to be the artist's son Paul, figures in one of the more enduring mysteries in Cézanne scholarship, the dating of the oil painting Baigneur aux bras écartés (Rewald painting, no. 370; dated 1877-1878). There is a second sheet that contains drawings of Paul's head and the boy in the bather's pose (Chappuis, no. 713; dated circa 1878). However, in the oil painting the boy appears to be a rather muscular adolescent, whereas Paul was only about 6 years old at the time. Consequently, Lionello Venturi ascribed a date of 1885-1887 to the painting, and several other recent commentators have concurred. Chappuis dates the present drawing to 1883-1886.
The dating of the drawings is complicated by the fact that Cézanne would often add sketches at a later date to a sheet he had previously worked on, and not infrequently repeated subjects on different sheets, sometimes drawing them years apart. The artist loved his son very dearly, and drew him many times as he was growing up.