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Lot Essay
The present work is dated circa 1885 by Rewald (loc. cit.) in accordance with Venturi. It is thus placed amongst Czanne's 1880s series of views of Mont Saint Victoire from across the valley of the Arc, examples of which include the pictures in the Courtauld Institute, London (R.598) and the Metropolitan Museum, New York (R.599). Rewald relates the present work to the Leningrad Mont Saint Victoire (R.899), normally dated in the latter half of the 1890s. Certainly, such a hiatus between a study and a related oil was common in Czanne's earlier work, but it would seems less likely in this instance because other watercolours in the 1880s series relate to near contemporary oils, such as the sheet in the Art Institute of Chicago (R.241), a preparatory work for R.598 and R.599.
On inspection, the present work would perhaps appear to be more closely related to the Mont Saint Victoire in the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (R.767). This view is based on the shared attributes of a wide angle of vision across the valley, the distance from the mountain, and the arrangement of foreground and middleground elements. Rewald recently dated the Barnes picture as 1892-95 in opposition to the more usual dating of the late 1880s. There seems to be an arguable case for retaining the ealier dating, seeing work as the culmination of the 1880s series. As Richard Verdi observed in discussing the series: 'in what is perhaps the grandest of them all - the version in the Barnes Foundation - Czanne sets the mighty silhouette of the mountain squarely in the centre of the picture and surveys the scene from an unimpeded view of unparalleled simplicity - and solemnity' (exh. cat. Czanne and Poussin - The Classical Vision of Landscape Edinburgh, 1990, p. 50).
The present work's succinct hatching and sparingly applied colour recalls another watercolour of the late 1880s, Le Chteau Noir in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam (R.313). Interestingly, Czanne in the Rotterdam sheet explores a motif which, like the Mont Saint Victoire, he was to return to in his final years.
On inspection, the present work would perhaps appear to be more closely related to the Mont Saint Victoire in the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (R.767). This view is based on the shared attributes of a wide angle of vision across the valley, the distance from the mountain, and the arrangement of foreground and middleground elements. Rewald recently dated the Barnes picture as 1892-95 in opposition to the more usual dating of the late 1880s. There seems to be an arguable case for retaining the ealier dating, seeing work as the culmination of the 1880s series. As Richard Verdi observed in discussing the series: 'in what is perhaps the grandest of them all - the version in the Barnes Foundation - Czanne sets the mighty silhouette of the mountain squarely in the centre of the picture and surveys the scene from an unimpeded view of unparalleled simplicity - and solemnity' (exh. cat. Czanne and Poussin - The Classical Vision of Landscape Edinburgh, 1990, p. 50).
The present work's succinct hatching and sparingly applied colour recalls another watercolour of the late 1880s, Le Chteau Noir in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam (R.313). Interestingly, Czanne in the Rotterdam sheet explores a motif which, like the Mont Saint Victoire, he was to return to in his final years.