Paul Cézanne

(possibly) Ambroise Vollard, Paris

(possibly) Camille Pissarro, Paris

Auguste Pellerin, Paris

M and Mme (née Pellerin) René Lecomte, Paris

Private Collection (sold: Christie's, New York, November 8, 1999, lot 129)

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

(possibly) Paris, Galerie Ambroise Vollard, Paul Cézanne, 1895

Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, Hommage Paul Cézanne, 1954, no. 18

London, Royal Academy of Arts; Paris, Musée d'Orsay & Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Cézanne, The Early Years (1859-1872), 1988-89, no. 37, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Basel, Kunstmuseum, Paul Cézanne: Die Badenden, 1989, nos. 18 and 47, illustrated in color in the catalogue (as dating from 1875-77)

Lionello Venturi, Cézanne, son art - son oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1936, no. 114, p. 92; vol. II, illustrated pl. 28 (as dating from 1869-71)

Lawrence Gowing, "Notes on the Development of Cézanne," Burlington Magazine, vol. XCVIII, London, June 1956, pp. 185-192 (as dating from circa 1869)

Sandra Orienti, The Complete Paintings of Cézanne, New York, 1976, no. 39, illustrated p. 88

John Rewald, The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. I, New York, 1996, no. 114, p. 105; vol. II, illustrated p. 38

Very good condition. Canvas appears to be unlined though the back of the canvas has been primed. There is a tiny indentation in the lower left corner. Under UV light, there is some fluorescence in the upper right corner where there is pigment separation.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The present work is one of Cézanne's earliest oil paintings of the female nude, a subject to which he would return throughout his career.  The surface of the present work is extraordinary for its thick layers of paint. In his pictures from the 1860s, Cézanne applied his pigment in dense, creamy strokes, so that the surface seems as much sculpted as it is painted.  In the present work, he achieves this density using dabs of paint from his brush, enhancing the figure's dimensional qualities.  This style, which was evocative of the palette knife application used by Courbet, had been adapted by the Impressionists as a new way to achieve ambient effects. It was Cézanne, however who saw the style's true potential and exploited the effects with great vigour.

Lawrence Gowing wrote the artist's response to these pictures: "Looking at them stacked against his studio wall thirty years afterwards, Cézanne called them une couillarde - and the coarse word for ostentatious virility suited the crudity of the attack with which the palette-knife expressed the indispensable force of temperament [...] Only  Pissarro understood what Cézanne had begun in this group of pictures. This phase was not only the invention of modern expressionism, although it was incidentally that; the idea of art as emotional ejaculation made its first appearance at this moment. But beyond this, Cézanne was the fist man in the group, perhaps the first man in history, to realize the necessity for the manner in which paint is handled to build up a homogeneous and consistent pictorial structure" (L. Gowing, Cézanne, The Early Years 1859-1872, New York, 1989, pp. 9-10).

The present work was once in the collection of the French industrialist Auguste Pellerin (1852-1929), one of the most important collectors of Impressionist art in the early twentieth century. The Pellerin Collection was renowned throughout the world for its strong holdings of works by Manet and Cézanne, which were mostly acquired from the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune.