Tête de Paul Cézanne fils

Details

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
Tête de Paul Cézanne fils
pencil on paper
8 3/8 x 5 1/8 in. (21.3 x 13 cm.)
Drawn circa 1880

Provenance

Paul Cézanne fils, Paris.
Acquired from the above by Paul Guillaume, Paris.
Acquired from the estate of the above by Adrien Chappuis, Tresserve, in 1934, and thence by descent to the Barut family, Chembéry; sale, Christie's London, 26 June 2003, lot 330.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owners.

Literature

L. Venturi, Cézanne, son art-son oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1936, no. 1299, p. 308 (illustrated vol. II pl. 352).
A. Chappuis, Dessins de Cézanne, Lausanne, 1957, no. 34 (illustrated).
W. Andersen, Cézanne's Portrait Drawings, Cambridge and London, 1970, no. 160, p. 32 (illustrated p. 157; dated circa 1884).
A. Chappuis, The Drawings of Paul Cézanne, A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. I, London, 1973, no. 734, p. 194 (illustrated vol. II no. 734).

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

This pensive study of Paul fils, possibly drawn while the boy was reading, is not directly related to any of the oil portraits done in the early 1880s, when the artist's son was about nine years old (cf. Rewald, nos. 463-468), although this depiction of young Paul with his head only slightly turned and his eyes lowered is similar to R. 467 (fig. 1, private collection). This study is typical of the informal and spontaneous manner in which the artist drew those closest to him, resulting in a poignancy and warmth seldom apparent in the paintings.

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