Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)

Pins à Bibémus

Details

Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)
Pins à Bibémus
watercolor on paper
18¾ x 12 3/8in. (47.6 x 31.4cm.)
Painted 1890-1895

Provenance

Paul Cézanne fils, Paris
Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris
Montross Gallery, New York
Arthur B. Davies, New York
Mrs. Cornelius J. Sullivan, New York; sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, Dec. 6, 1939, lot 142 (illustrated; acquired by the present owner)

Literature

L. Venturi, Cézanne, son art--son oeuvre, Paris, 1936, vol. I, p. 263, no. 985 (illustrated, vol. II, pl. 296; dated 1895-1900)
F. Elgar, Cézanne, Paris, 1968, p. 257 (illustrated)
J. Rewald, Paul Cézanne, The Watercolors, Boston, 1983, no. 399 (illustrated)
J. Rewald, Cézanne and America: Dealers, Collectors, Artists and Critics, 1891-1921, Princeton, New Jersey, 1989, no. 149 (illustrated, p. 297)

Exhibited

Rome, Prima Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte della Secessione, 1913, no. 674
New York, Montross Gallery, Cézanne, Jan., 1916, no. 26 (titled Trees in a Ravine)
New York, Ferargil Gallery, The Important Collection of Modern Paintings Collected by an American Collector, 1926, no. 33
Springfield, Massachusetts, Museum of Fine Arts, Opening Exhibition, Oct.-Nov., 1933, no. 102
New York, Wildenstein Galleries, Cézanne, Nov.-Dec., 1959, no. 77 (illustrated)
Pasadena, Art Museum, Cézanne Watercolors, Nov.-Dec., 1967, no. 12 (illustrated)
Tübingen, Kunsthalle, Cézanne Aquarelle, Jan.-March, 1982, no. 49 (illustrated). The exhibition traveled to Zurich, Kunsthaus, April-May, 1982.

Lot Essay

According to Rewald (op. cit., p. 184), "This study may have been executed--if not at Bibémus quarry--near the caves on the hilltop behind Château Noir" (op. cit., p. 184). Both locations (see lot 222) provided a motif to which Cézanne returned time after time in his late watercolors: the soaring vertical pine trees set in counter-point against the softer, rounded shapes of rock formations. The quarry at Bibémus provided stone for many of the stately façades in Aix, but had been abandoned for some time when Cézanne had begun to work amid the man-carved architecture of ochre stone, now overgrown with trees and bushes. The same road along which quarriers had carried stone from Bibémus to the northeastern quarter of Aix crosses the high plateau to the north of Château Noir, with its thick forests of pine.

Pins à Bibemus was one of thirty watercolors, with several oil paintings, consigned by Galerie Bernheim-Jeune to the 1916 exhibition at the Montross Gallery, New York. The focus of the exhibition was on the watercolors; in fact, the catalogue introduction was devoted exclusively to them. The reviews were varied and contradictory, but the exhibition was well-attended, and it was a financial success. Montross acquired seventeen watercolors for his clients. The present work, like Le Puits dans le parc de Château Noir four years before, was purchased by the painter Arthur B. Davies (see lot 222).

This watercolor is listed as no. 156 in the Vollard archives.