Etude pour Léda et Etude de tête (recto); Deux études de Paul Cézanne fils (verso)

Details

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
Etude pour Léda et Etude de tête (recto); Deux études de Paul Cézanne fils (verso)
pencil on paper (recto and verso)
4 7/8 x 8 5/8in. (12.4 x 21.8cm.)
Drawn circa 1877-1882 (Léda, recto); drawn circa 1880-1882 (Etude de tête, recto); drawn circa 1882 (verso)

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.
By descent from the above to the present owner.

Literature

L. Venturi, Cézanne, son art-son oeuvre, Paris, 1936, no. 1290, pp. 307-308 (recto and verso).
A. Chappuis, Dessins de Paul Cézanne, Paris, 1938, no. 9 (recto illustrated).
G. Berthold, Cézanne und die alten Meister, Stuttgart, 1958, no. 300 (recto illustrated).
W. Andersen, Cézanne's Portrait Drawings, Cambridge and London, 1970, no. 165, p. 32 (recto illustrated p. 161, dated circa 1884-86).
A. Chappuis, The Drawings of Paul Cézanne, A Catalogue Raisonné, London, 1973, vol. I, no. 484, p. 147 (recto); no. 831, p. 207 (verso) (illustrated vol. II, nos. 484 and 831).
Exh. cat., Finished Unfinished Cézanne, Kunsthaus Zurich, 2000 (recto illustrated p. 246).

Exhibited

Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art, Cézanne, March-May 1974, no. 99. This exhibition later travelled to Kyoto, Municipal Museum and Fukuoka, Cultural Center, June-Aug. 1974.
Tübingen, Kunsthalle, Paul Cézanne. Das zeichnerische Werk, Oct.-Dec. 1978, no. 132 (recto illustrated p. 228).

Special notice

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Lot Essay

The verso of this sheet was page XXXVI from the sketchbook CP II.

Léda is a preparatory study for the painting Léda au cygne (R 447; circa 1880). There is another version of this subject (C 483), where Léda is depicted without swan, holding a champagne glass.
Vollard gives a romanticised account of the subject's genesis: 'The idea of this last composition was suggested to him by the famous painting of Courbet, The Woman with a Parrot. Upon seeing this picture, Cézanne exclaimed, "I'm going to do a Woman with a Swan"' (A. Vollard, Cézanne, New York, edition of 1984, translated from the French by H.L. Van Doren).

W. Andersen (op. cit.) suggested that the sketch of a head to the right of Léda is probably a study for a portrait of Cézanne's son.

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