Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

Seven Cézanne Paintings from The Auguste Pellerin Collection The Property of a European Foundation Monday, 30 November 1992 at approximately 7.00pm. At 8 King Street, St. James's, SW1 In sending written bids or making enquiries, this sale should be referred to as CEZANNE-4885 Enquiries James Roundell on (071) 389 2431 Jussi Pylkkänen on (071) 389 2452 Amanda Renshaw on (071) 389 2450 Guy Jennings (Paris office) on (331) 42 56 17 66 Commission bids on Fax: (071) 930 8870 Viewing Tuesday 24 November 9.00 a.m. - 8.00 p.m. Wednesday 25 November 9.00 a.m. - 4.30 p.m. Thursday 26 November 9.00 a.m. - 4.30 p.m. Friday 27 November 9.00 a.m. - 4.30 p.m. Sunday 29 November 2.00 p.m. - 5.00 p.m. Monday 30 November 9.00 p.m. - 4.30 p.m. Cover illustration lot PREVIEWS These seven pictures will be on view in the following locations prior to the sale:- Zürich, 1-3 November 1992 Vortragssaal, Kunsthaus New York, 12-15 November 1992 Christie's Park Avenue 502 Park Avenue New York, NY 10022 Tokyo, 18-19 November 1992 Christie's Ginza office Ichibankan Bldg., B1 3-12, Ginza 5-chome Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104 London, 23-27, 29-30 November 1992 Christie's, 8 King Street London SW1 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY The abbreviations used in this catalogue are as follows:- Venturi L. Venturi, Cézanne, son art, son oeuvre, Paris, 1936, 2 vols. Chappuis A. Chappuis, The Drawings of Paul Cézanne, A Catalogue Raisonné, London, 1973, 2 vols. Rewald J. Rewald, Paul Cézanne, the watercolours, London, 1983 Cherpin J. Cherpin, Paul Cézanne; l'oeuvre gravé, Marseilles, 1973 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Christie's are grateful to John Rewald, the doyen of Cézanne studies, for making available his notes on these seven pictures for his forthcoming catalogue raisonné, currently in preparation. We are further grateful to Jayne Warman and Gerrard White for information concerning the early provenance of these pictures. Joachim Pissarro and Alain Mothe have been of valuable assistance in identifying the exact location of Maison dans les Arbres (lot ). The Auguste Pellerin Collection An Introduction The collector Auguste Pellerin (1852-1929) brought together, over more than a quarter of a century, the greatest collection of Cézanne pictures ever assembled. In terms of quality and quantity it was, in the words of John Rewald, "an ensemble not even matched by Dr Barnes." As there are no surviving records of Pellerin's purchases or disposals it is uncertain just how many Cézannes were in the collection, but there were certainly well over a hundred. It would appear that he was one of the very first real collectors of Cézanne's pictures, commencing possibly as early as 1895 and steadily adding to the collection until his last documented purchase at the Gangnat sale in 1925 (just four years before his death) when he paid the then record price of 528,000 francs for Le Grand Pin et les Terres Rouges (Venturi 459). Pellerin's collection was widely known to his contemporaries. Several artists and authors recorded their visits to the house in Neuilly. Among these was the German art historian Emil Waldmann who wrote in 1914, "Whoever is recommended and introduced can receive a ticket to see the collection. The collection is open two days a week for visitors. You are guided by servants who let you study and examine the paintings as long as you wish and who do not rush you" ("Die Sammlung Auguste Pellerin in Paris", in Die Guildenkammer, Berlin, Jan. 1914, p. 217; trans. Christie's). Later, Waldmann was to recount how Pellerin had formed the collection, "Mr Auguste Pellerin who today owns some one hundred Cézannes, began with Henner in the days when he had just established his margerine factories in Scandanavia, France, Germany and England. He soon got rid of these; once he had come across Corot, no substitute would do. But even Corot had to go after Pellerin had seen the Impressionists. Then, a few years later, he gave them up and stuck only with Manet. And after Manet had been enshrined for some time as the sole ruler in the house at Neuilly, he too had to leave and his rival moved in. Thus the road of one of the greatest modern collectors led from Henner to Cézanne. "When Mr Pellerin sold his Henners and Vollons in favour of Corots, his friends were suprised. They felt that he was rich enough to keep Henner and Vollon. Yet, he didn't keep them; his aim was not to found a museum but to live with his pictures. "His" painter, in those days, was Corot, just as today "his" painter is Cézanne. The people who once advised him to keep Henner had no passion for art and did not understand the true nature of the collector; they were unaware of the main feature of the modern collection: the one sidedness" (E. Waldmann, Sammler und ihresgleichen, Berlin, 1920, p. 33 trans. J. Rewald, "Some Entries for a new catalogue raisonné of Cézanne's paintings, in Gazette de Beaux-Arts, Paris, Nov. 1975, p. 165). It is not known where Pellerin's great passion for Cézanne's work (and in this he was well ahead of nearly all his contemporaries) originated. In the Paris of the early 1890s it was virtually impossible to see Cézanne's work, as Roger Fry was later to recall of his student days spent in Paris during 1892. "I was familiar enough with the names of some of the works of all the artists who had brought about the Impressionist movement in 1870, twenty years before, of all that is to say except one - the name of Cézanne was absolutely unknown to the art students of that day...throughout my student days in Paris I never once heard of the existence of such a man." How then did Pellerin come across Cézanne's work? The only official exhibitions containing Cézanne's pictures were the 1882 and 1889 Salons which each included one. Some artists such as Pissarro and Monet, authors like Zola, Paul Alexis, Théodore Duret and maverick patrons such as Chocquet and Dr Gachet were the only people to possess Cézanne works prior to the 1890s. There were however some canvases stored with Père Tanguy who, in the same way as he showed his van Goghs, would occasionally put one in his window. It was Ambroise Vollard who was to be responsible for changing this situation, making Cézanne's works accessible to a wider public and, virtually one-handed, creating a market for Cézanne's work. It was also, perhaps, from Vollard that Pellerin bought his first Cézanne. The occasion may well have been the exhibition of approximately 150 pictures (not all shown at once) that Vollard put on in November 1895 at the behest of Pissarro, Monet, Renoir and Guillaumin who had suggested the idea. Camille Pissarro, in a letter to his son Lucien on 13 Nov. 1895 recounted his impressions and his doubts. "At Vollard's, there is a very complete exhibition of Cézanne's work. Still lifes of astonishing perfection, also unfinished works that are really extraordinary for their fierceness and character. I don't imagine that they will be understood." In his book about Cézanne's life first published in 1915, Vollard recalled the outrage caused by the pictures he placed in the window and the subsequent appearance of Auguste Pellerin in his gallery. "Several of those who were the most solicitous for the success of the exhibition had persuaded me to take the nudes out of the window, calling my attention to the fact that the public was not yet ready for them, and that such a display was calculated to discourage the very best of intentions. I finally yielded, a little against my will, and put the nudes inside face to the wall; but a visitor, in turning the pictures around, discovered the Leda with the Swan [Venturi 550], and purchased it on the spot. Thus the first composition of nudes sold during the exhibition was acquired by Monsieur Auguste Pellerin." (A. Vollard, Paul Cézanne, Paris, 1915, pp. 59-60). Despite the fact that Vollard continued for many years to come to be one of, if not the, chief dealer in Cézanne's works, although Pellerin was happy to buy through other galleries and intermediaries. Around 1900 Pellerin also began to buy extensively at Bernheim-Jeune. The first documented purchase by Pellerin from Vollard, according to the Vollard ledgers, was in December 1898 when he bought four pictures for 1800 francs. Pellerin and Vollard may well have fallen out but in any case Pellerin continued to buy, sometimes unwittingly, from Vollard as the majority of pictures he was offered by Bernheim-Jeune and the other dealers were either on consignment from Vollard or owned in partnership. In any case Cézanne himself continued to have great faith in Vollard and preferred to deal exclusively with him although Cézanne's son sold pictures direct to Bernheim-Jeune. Pellerin did not just buy from dealers. He obviously attended the important auctions of the day and bid directly. On 1 July 1899 Pellerin attended the Chocquet sale and purchased Le Clos Normand (Venturi 445) for francs. At the Emile Zola estate auction on 9 March 1903 he bought six of the nine Cézannes in the sale, including the Portrait de l'Artiste (lot in this auction). What is astounding is the sheer passion Pellerin exhibited for Cézanne's work and the great number of pictures which he acquired in such a relatively short time. Following the six he bought at the Zola sale there were then seven major pictures bought by Pellerin on one day in July 1904 from Bernheim-Jeune. By 1907 the collection was already of considerable size and fame. Of the 49 oil paintings by Cézanne shown at the retrospective accorded him at the 1907 Salon d'Automne no less than 25 were lent by Pellerin, including Marion et Valabrègue (lot ). The climate for Cézanne was changing, as Leo Stein observed following his visit to the Salon d'Automne, "Hitherto Cézanne had been important only for the few; he was about to become important for everybody. At the Autumn Salon of 1905 people laughed themselves into hysterics before his pictures, in 1906 they were respectful, and in 1907 they were reverent, Cézanne had become the man of the moment." The role of Pellerin's collection in engineering this change was vital as Paul Modersohn Becker wrote on 21 Oct. 1907 to the wife of the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, "These days I have been thinking much of Cézanne and how he is one of the three or four powerful figures that had an effect on me like a thunderstorm and a tremendous event. Do you remember 1900 at Vollards? And now, during the last days of my stay in Paris, there were strange paintings from his beginnings in the Pellerin collection. Tell your husband he should try and see Pellerin, who has 150 Cézannes" (J. Rewald, op.cit., p. 164). It is hard to imagine what the inside of Pellerin's house must have looked like. As Waldmann stated, Pellerin liked to live with his pictures and therefore hung them everywhere around his house, on the staircases and even hung against mirrors. As Waldmann observed, "There are pictures of every size and every subject...In all rooms, in all corridors, along all staircases." Although he sold his holdings of other artists he still retained substantial numbers of works by other Impressionists. So much so that in 1910 Bernheim-Jeune (in association with Durand-Ruel and Paul Cassirer) was able to show 35 Manet pictures from the Pellerin collection in their exhibition (they were, however, for sale). The introduction to the Manet collection referred to Pellerin as coming from "la race des collectionneurs qui ne spéculent pas. S'il a des tableaux, c'est pour vivre avec eux. Le collectionneur veritable, pensait-il, n'accumule pas, il choisit." As well as being a generous lender to exhibitions, Pellerin welcomed visitors to his house. "Presque tous ceux, français ou etrangers, que l'art contemporain attire, ont passé devant cet ensemble incomparable; car M. Auguste Pellerin ne demandait qu'à faire partager son enthousiasme pour Paul Cézanne; et sa porte fut toujours largement ouvert aux visiteurs" (R. Rey, "Trois tableaux de Cézanne", in Bulletin des Musées de France, Dec. 1929, p. 271). It was the Pellerin collection which formed the basis for Roger Fry's monograph on Cézanne published in 1927. Fry recalled the circumstances; "About three years ago M. Waldemar George, then editor of L'Amour de L'Art, desiring to bring out in his journal a complete series of reproductions of the Cézannes in M. Pellerin's collection, asked me to write the accompanying text." His familiarity with the collection prompted Fry to write, "M. Pellerin's collection is so much the most representative of all the various phases of Cézanne's art in existence, that a study of it is essential to understanding his development." Today, pictures from the collection are to be found in museums around the world. Three Cézanne still-lifes were left to the Louvre on Pellerin's death. Further donations to the Louvre followed with La Femme à la Cafetière (Venturi 574) in 1956, the celebrated portrait of Achille Emperaire in 1964 (Venturi 88), the important Mont St. Victoire and Portrait de Gustave Geffroy (Venturi 488 and 692) in 1969, twelve further pictures in 1982 and most recently L'Oncle Dominique en Avocat (Venturi 74) in 1991. "Pellerin" Cézannes in the National Gallery, London, include Portrait de Vieille Femme and the seminal Grandes Baigneuses (Venturi 702 and 721). The National Gallery of Art in Washington now possesses Le Père de l'Artiste lisant L'Evènement (Venturi 91), The Metropolitan Museum, New York has Mme. Cézanne au Fauteuil jaune (Venturi 569), Les Grandes Baigneuses (Venturi 719) is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Les Joueurs de Cartes (Venturi 560) is in the Barnes Foundation.

Details

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

Marion et Valabrègue partant pour le Motif

oil on canvas
15 7/8 x 12½in. (40.3 x 31.9cm.)

Painted in Autumn 1866

Provenance

Georges Charpentier, Paris; sale, Charpentier Collection, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 11 April 1907, lot 3 (as Deux Figures d'Hommes dans un jardin, 1868)
M. Aubry, Paris, 1907, bought at the Charpentier sale
Galerie E. Druet, Paris
Auguste Pellerin, Paris, after 1915

Literature

P. Cézanne, Letter to Emile Zola, circa 19 Oct. 1866
A. Vollard, Archives, photograph no. 160 (annotated by Cézanne's son as circa 1865-70)
J. Meier-Graefe, Paul Cézanne, Munich, 1918 (illustrated p. 89)
J. Meier-Graefe, Cézanne und sein Kreis, Munich, 1920 (illustrated p. 8)
J. Meier-Graefe, Cézanne und sein Kreis, Munich, 1922 (illustrated p. 101)
G. Rivière, Le Maître Paul Cézanne, Paris, 1923, p. 198
R. Fry, "Le Developpement de Cézanne", in Amour de l'Art, Paris, Dec. 1926 (illustrated p. 400)
R. Fry, Cézanne, A Study of his Dévelopment, London, 1927, pp. 28-29 (illustrated pl. xxxvii, fig. 13)
R. Fry, "Cézannes udrikling", in Samlaren, Stockholm, 1929 (illustrated p. 118)
L. Venturi, Cézanne, son art, son oeuvre, Paris, 1936, p. 87, no. 96 (illustrated vol. II, pl. 24)
J. Rewald ed., Cézanne, Correspondance, Paris, 1937, p. 99
J. Rewald ed., Paul Cézanne, Letters, London, 1941, p. 75
J. Rewald, Paul Cézanne, a Biography, New York, 1939, pp. 167-8 (illustrated p. 16)
J. Rewald, Paul Cézanne, London, 1948, p. 70 (illustrated pl. 5) A. Chappuis, Les Dessins de P. Cézanne au Cabinet des estampes du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bâle, Olten and Lausanne, 1962 (illustrated fig. 1)
J. Lindsay, Cézanne, his Life and Art, London, 1969, pp. 112-3
W. Andersen, Cézanne's Portrait Drawings, Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1970, pp. 3, 218 (illustrated p. 218)
S. Orienti, L'Opera completa di Cézanne, Milan, 1970, no. 24 (illustrated p. 87)
A. Chappuis, The Drawings of Paul Cézanne, a catalogue raisonné, vol. I, London, 1973, p. 81
J. Rewald, Cézanne, a Biography, New York, 1986, p. 82 (illustrated p. 55)
L. Gowing, "The Early Works of Paul Cézanne", in Cézanne, The Early Years 1859-1872, London, 1988, pp. 10-11 (illustrated in colour p. 121)

Exhibited

Paris, Grand Palais, Salon d'Automne, 5ème Exposition, Rétrospective de Cézanne, 1-22 Oct. 1907, no. 46 (as Les Peintres, lent by M. Aubry)
Paris, Orangerie des Tuileries, Hommage à Cézanne, July-Sept. 1954, no. 10
London, The Royal Academy, Cézanne, The Early Years, 1859-1872, April-Aug. 1988, no. 25 (illustrated in colour p. 120). This exhibition later travelled to Paris, Musée d'Orsay, Sept.-Dec. 1988; and Washington, National Gallery of Art, Jan.-April 1989

Lot Essay

This charming painting of Cézanne's Aixois friends, the artist Fortuné Marion (1846-1900) and the writer Antony Valabrègue (1844- 1900) is one of the few early pictures by Cézanne that can be securely dated. Lawrence Gowing observes in Cézanne: The Early Years, "One more picture can be documented to 1866, Marion and Valabrègue setting out for the Motif, a sketch from nature on the theme of friendship, showing Valabrègue and Marion setting out to look for a landscape motif, the latter with an easel on his back - a picture which was to be painted outdoors. The months of intensive effort in the studio left Cézanne with the belief that pictures painted indoors would never be as good as those done in the open air; it was the nucleus of the convictions about painting from nature that he acted on five years later'.

Cézanne referred to this picture in a letter to Emile Zola of about 19 October 1866, "I have already spoken to you about a picture I want to attempt, it will represent Marion and Valabrègue setting out to look for a motif. The sketch which Guillemet considers good and which I did after nature makes everything else seem bad." In the margin of the letter (see W. Andersen, Cézanne's Portrait Drawings, Cambridge, Mass., 1970, no. 241) Cézanne makes a small pen and ink 'thumbnail' drawing of the present picture. The painter Antoine Guillemet had obviously visited Cézanne's studio and seen the picture and expressed his approval which in turn excited Cézanne's own pleasurable reaction in the letter to Zola. A less happy participant was Antony Valabrègue who, in turn, had written to Zola on 2 October 1866, "At the present time Marion and I are posing for him. We are arm in arm, and have hideous shapes. Paul is a horrible painter as regards the poses he gives people in the midst of his riots of colour. Every time he paints one of his friends it seems as though he were revenging himself on him for some hidden injury".

Cézanne's intention to work up a large composition from this small picture was obviously too ambitious and he added a postscript to Guillemet's letter to Zola on 2 November 'I must tell you, however, that as you feared, my big picture of Valabrègue and Marion has not been done'. A brief pencil drawing for the present smaller version is in the Kunstmuseum, Basle (see W. Andersen, op.cit., no. 242).

Marion et Valabrègue partant pour le motif demonstrates the preoccupation of Cézanne and the trend of his development at this crucial stage in his self-discovery. Moving from the early studio based, violent palette-knife pictures, he now indicates a desire to escape the studio and get out into the open countryside and to tone down the earlier vehemence of his technique. Roger Fry in his early appreciation of the pictures in the Pellerin collection wrote, "It is generally in small works thrown off by the way that an artist reveals the underlying trend of his nature...In them the profounder and more unconscious needs have full play..." and of this picture, "The colour is here of importance. Black still plays a large part, in the tall hats and clothes of the men. The tree has still the heavy dark tones of this period, but in the landscape viridians, cadmium greens and oranges appear, and these announce a new orientation towards a richer, more varied, more modulated harmony, one less reminiscent of "museum pictures", one more influenced by a direct outlook on nature. One feels here the evidence of a more curious observation, a more alert vision" (Cézanne, a study of his development, London, 1927, p. 28). This move to a lighter palette was noticed at the time by Guillemet who observed to Pissarro in a letter of 23 October 1866, "Cézanne has done some very beautiful paintings. He is painting in light tones again".

When, 33 years later, the Jas de Bouffan was sold and the studio cleared "Cézanne is said to have burned a number of large canvases which were figure compositions executed with the knife - pictures which, if they were correctly described, are quite hard to imagine, unless Marion and Valabrègue was among them" (L. Gowing, in Cézanne, The Early Years, London, 1988, p. 11).

Marion and Valabrègue were two of Cézanne's closest companions in these early Aix days. Marion is said to have followed Cézanne's example and used the palette knife to execute a series of paintings in imitation of Cézanne's style. A view of Aix of circa 1866 is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and indeed a painting of the Church of St. Jean-de-Malte in Aix formerly ascribed to Cézanne (Venturi 49) was, upon being cleaned, discovered to carry the signature of Marion. Marion was later to turn to science and became a director of The Natural History Museum in Marseilles. In Cézanne's painting he is depicted on the left wearing a Barbizon hat and with an easel and canvas roll strapped on his back.

Valabrègue evidently did not enjoy posing for Cézanne as he reported in a letter to Zola, "luckily I had to pose for only one day, but the uncle serves as a model more often." In fact Cézanne made three portraits of Valabrègue (Venturi 126-128). In 1866 Valabrègue was an aspiring writer producing, according to Guillemet, at least a poem a day. Valabrègue later forsook poetry and became a historian and critic. His friendship with Cézanne ceased after this early period.

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