Lot Essay
This painting will appear as no. 371 in the late John Rewald's forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Cézanne's paintings, being prepared in collaboration with Walter Feilchenfeldt and Jayne Warman.
Cézanne painted the present work around 1878. It represents eight women in varying states of undress on the banks of a stream, and a man riding a donkey in the water. Traditionally, this figure has been identified as Sancho Panza, Don Quixote's companion; the picture has also been known by the title Sancho dans l'eau. In the mid-1870's, Cézanne was fascinated by Cervantes's tale and he painted two, possibly three, canvases of Don Quixote (Venturi nos. 104, 244 and 246). While the present picture may in fact represent Sancho, it does not appear to illustrate a specific scene from the novel.
The presence of nude figures on the banks of the stream clearly links the picture to the paintings of bathers which Cézanne began to create in the early 1870's. The bather series was to become one of the artist's most distinctive achievements. Roger Fry has written notably about the present picture,
There exists a small number of compositions which have an
extraordinary freshness and delicacy of feeling, a flowing suavity
of rhythm and a daintiness of color which reminds one of the
masterpieces of the eighteenth century. It is the expression of a
mood that surprises one by its almost playful elegance in a
temperament that for the most part was so grave, so austere and so
little attracted by the factitious.
An example [is]...the Sancho Panza, which is as happy as it is unexpected in the disposition of the figures. These moreover are conceived in such perfect concordance with the landscape, the
rhythmic feeling is so unbroken and all-pervading, that Cézanne's peculiar lyrical emotion emerges clearly. (R. Fry, Cézanne,
New York, 1958, p. 86)
Earlier Fry made a more general remark which also applies to the present painting: "I cannot help suspecting, in these pictures where there is an appearance of easier, more felicitous invention, that the design has generally been taken from another work of art" (ibid., p. 85). It has been suggested that Scène légendaire is modeled after Delacroix's Ovid among the Scythians, now in the National Gallery in London (S. Orienti, op. cit., p. 99); but in fact the composition of painting is more closely related to Watteau's Pilgrimage to Cythera. The undulating line of figures and ground at the left of Cézanne's picture comes from the comparable elements at the right in Watteau's painting. Fry's emphasis on the eighteenth- century character of Scène légendaire was thus very perceptive. The reputation of Watteau was in ascendancy in the 1870's, especially following the Goncourts's celebration of his genius in their book L'art au dix-huitième siècle; and the Pilgrimage to Cythera was on view at the Louvre, where Cézanne obsessively made copies after Old Master paintings and sculptures. Furthermore, Watteau was clearly identified with the colorist tradition, running from Titian to Delacroix, which Cézanne embraced; and Watteau's typical subject matter of fêtes galantes anticipated the Impressionists's interest in images of leisure.
Camille Pissarro, Cézanne's close friend, was the first owner of the painting.
Cézanne painted the present work around 1878. It represents eight women in varying states of undress on the banks of a stream, and a man riding a donkey in the water. Traditionally, this figure has been identified as Sancho Panza, Don Quixote's companion; the picture has also been known by the title Sancho dans l'eau. In the mid-1870's, Cézanne was fascinated by Cervantes's tale and he painted two, possibly three, canvases of Don Quixote (Venturi nos. 104, 244 and 246). While the present picture may in fact represent Sancho, it does not appear to illustrate a specific scene from the novel.
The presence of nude figures on the banks of the stream clearly links the picture to the paintings of bathers which Cézanne began to create in the early 1870's. The bather series was to become one of the artist's most distinctive achievements. Roger Fry has written notably about the present picture,
There exists a small number of compositions which have an
extraordinary freshness and delicacy of feeling, a flowing suavity
of rhythm and a daintiness of color which reminds one of the
masterpieces of the eighteenth century. It is the expression of a
mood that surprises one by its almost playful elegance in a
temperament that for the most part was so grave, so austere and so
little attracted by the factitious.
An example [is]...the Sancho Panza, which is as happy as it is unexpected in the disposition of the figures. These moreover are conceived in such perfect concordance with the landscape, the
rhythmic feeling is so unbroken and all-pervading, that Cézanne's peculiar lyrical emotion emerges clearly. (R. Fry, Cézanne,
New York, 1958, p. 86)
Earlier Fry made a more general remark which also applies to the present painting: "I cannot help suspecting, in these pictures where there is an appearance of easier, more felicitous invention, that the design has generally been taken from another work of art" (ibid., p. 85). It has been suggested that Scène légendaire is modeled after Delacroix's Ovid among the Scythians, now in the National Gallery in London (S. Orienti, op. cit., p. 99); but in fact the composition of painting is more closely related to Watteau's Pilgrimage to Cythera. The undulating line of figures and ground at the left of Cézanne's picture comes from the comparable elements at the right in Watteau's painting. Fry's emphasis on the eighteenth- century character of Scène légendaire was thus very perceptive. The reputation of Watteau was in ascendancy in the 1870's, especially following the Goncourts's celebration of his genius in their book L'art au dix-huitième siècle; and the Pilgrimage to Cythera was on view at the Louvre, where Cézanne obsessively made copies after Old Master paintings and sculptures. Furthermore, Watteau was clearly identified with the colorist tradition, running from Titian to Delacroix, which Cézanne embraced; and Watteau's typical subject matter of fêtes galantes anticipated the Impressionists's interest in images of leisure.
Camille Pissarro, Cézanne's close friend, was the first owner of the painting.