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Lot Essay
The first owner of the present work was Julien "Le père" Tanguy, who owned an art supply store on the rue Cauzel in Paris. Pissarro had introduced Tanguy to Cézanne, and the two became friends, the former holding the work of the latter in higher esteem than he did of any other Impressionist artist with whom he came into contact. After the painting was sold in 1894 at Drouot, Ambroise Vollard sold it to the American expatriate living in Florence, Charles Loeser, whose circle included such connoisseurs as Bernard Berenson and Leo and Gertrude Stein.
In Rewald's 1996 catalogue raisonné, he dated Paysage as having been painted "circa 1881 (possibly earlier)", the work having orginally been dated 1873-1877 by Lionello Venturi. Rewald compared the similarities in execution of the foreground of the present work to that of a landscape dated 1879-80, Petit ville de l'Ile de France (Rewald 414).
Clear pentimenti can be observed to the upper half of the canvas, indicating that Paysage was painted over a prior composition. As Theodore Reff noted, "the entire sky is painted over a previous study, which shows through faintly; here the unfinished foreground trees -- a few tentatively drawn vertical lines -- demonstrate how Cézanne selected only those elements of the motif that could be incorporated into a coherent design" (T. Reff, op. cit., p. 118).
In Rewald's 1996 catalogue raisonné, he dated Paysage as having been painted "circa 1881 (possibly earlier)", the work having orginally been dated 1873-1877 by Lionello Venturi. Rewald compared the similarities in execution of the foreground of the present work to that of a landscape dated 1879-80, Petit ville de l'Ile de France (Rewald 414).
Clear pentimenti can be observed to the upper half of the canvas, indicating that Paysage was painted over a prior composition. As Theodore Reff noted, "the entire sky is painted over a previous study, which shows through faintly; here the unfinished foreground trees -- a few tentatively drawn vertical lines -- demonstrate how Cézanne selected only those elements of the motif that could be incorporated into a coherent design" (T. Reff, op. cit., p. 118).