Apples, bottle and chairback (Pommes, bouteille et dossier de chaise)

Typical of Cézanne's late watercolours, this still life exudes confidence and fluidity. The loose pencil sketch is overlaid with an intense array of colour washes, vividly illustrating Cézanne's belief that "the form reveals its greatest fullness" when "the colour attains its greatest richness". Spots of colour - square, cone-shaped and round - directly record the impulse of the brush, while circular arcs in the space beyond the chair and in the surface of the table echo the spherical forms of the bowl, fruit and chairback.

In his studio in Les Lauves, in the hills north of Aix-en-Provence, Cézanne produced an important group of still-life watercolours, of which this drawing is among the most magnificent. Remarkable for their sense of freedom, imagination and movement, these late watercolours are unsigned and undated, and generally made on a large scale. The group varies in degree of finish and complexity, and is characterised by the use of intense primary colours, with the subtle interplay of overlapping washes allowing for a display of incredibly rich tonalities, from the warmest reds and yellows to cooler blues and greens. It is these masterful contrasts of colours that continue to captivate the viewer. While still life represented a very small proportion of Cézanne’s work in the 1870s, during the 1880s and 1890s the artist began to engage more closely with the genre. But it was really in the works executed while at Les Lauves that he fully developed his personal vision of the genre, reaching a climax in these watercolours, that demonstrate how he pushed the boundaries of the medium. The skilful dialogue between pencil marks and transparent brushstrokes, as well as the luminosity of the paper reserve, are key features of the late watercolours. To this group belong some 24 still lifes composed of ordinary studio props such as fruits and bowls, bottles and glasses, as well as skulls and teapots, presented on tables and consoles. Some of these objects can still be identified today among the things that were left in his studio. Cézanne moved into Les Lauves in early September 1902, at the age of 63, having worked before then at the Jas de Bouffan, his family residence west of Aix. Technically, this watercolour is a tour de force of looping, zigzagging, hatching pencil-marks and brushstrokes, all of which form a final composition that gives the impression of having been achieved with great ease. The strokes of colour and the graphite lines create an evocative, decorative effect that distances these objects from reality and moves them into the realm of pure imagination. In his late years, Cézanne told the painter and critic Émile Bernard that ‘to read nature is to see through the veil of interpretation in terms of coloured touches that follow each other according to a law of harmony. These principal colours are analysed through modulations’, thus implying that harmonious applications of patches of colour would shape the forms and ultimately give rise to a drawing or a painting. These theoretical statements make it clear that Cézanne was not pursuing the objective reproduction of nature but sought to interpret it and convey his own personal vision of it. To achieve this highly complex work Cézanne proceeded by laying out the composition first in graphite before developing it with multi-layered applications of thin and translucent or, at times, thicker washes, with some of the preliminary drawing disappearing under the layers of lush dabs of watercolour. The use of transparent washes also meant that there was little margin for revision. This is made especially clear in the area below the fruits at right, where the artist started drawing a larger round shape (perhaps that of a melon) that he later abandoned. A new feature of these late kaleidoscopic watercolours is the use of graphite applied over the watercolour, contravening the standard practice of covering the underdrawing with wash. Instead, Cézanne redrew and redefined some of the elements of the composition in graphite, often repeating the lines by going over them several times. In these late drawings Cézanne used colours composed essentially of pure pigments, evident in the ridges formed in areas where the wash is densely applied. The emerald green, composed of copper and arsenic, prone to darkening when the sheet is over-exposed to light, is remarkably well preserved. The extraordinary intense blue that, along with the red, dominates the surface of this work is mainly cobalt blue, with some indigo. Without mixing the colours, the artist proceeded by applying one veil of wash over another, thus creating additional tints. This multi-layered approach meant that he had to allow a longer drying time between each application to prevent the merging of the individual hues. As in many of his late still lifes, Cézanne used a smooth, machine-made wove paper that enhanced the luminosity of the colours by reflecting light back. The brush moved fluidly on the uniform and even surface of these sheets, uninterrupted by the tooth of more textured papers. A watermark, Canson & Montgolfier, runs along the upper edge of the sheet and is visible to the naked eye, indicating the type of resistant, good-quality paper preferred by the artist. Cézanne seems to have taken up watercolour almost casually, as a break between working sessions on oil paintings. He exhibited watercolours for the first time in 1877 at the third Impressionist exhibition, to which he sent three in addition to thirteen oil paintings. However, it was not until 1905 that his dealer Ambroise Vollard organised the first exhibition solely dedicated to Cézanne’s watercolours. The present work was not included, but it featured in a major exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1934, before Samuel Courtauld acquired it just a few years later. Curiously, ten years earlier, Courtauld had owned another watercolour still life by Cézanne, which he had bought from Percy Moore Turner of the Independent Gallery, and sold back to him a year later for unknown reasons. The collector seemed to be looking to acquire a specific still life that was not yet available on the market, as the letter accompanying the transaction of the present watercolour reveals. In the document, the representative of the Wildenstein Gallery suggests that Courtauld take Apples, Bottle and Chairback ‘for the time being and if in the future the other one is for sale and you like it better, that we undertake to make an exchange with you. This would probably involve giving you the other picture plus a certain amount in cash, as it is smaller, more sketchy, and I think less valuable than our own …. I do not think myself that you would ever regret having this watercolour.’ It was fortunate that Samuel Courtauld did not regret purchasing Apples, Bottle and Chairback. This remarkable watercolour appears in a photograph of his home in North Audley Street, and is now one of the jewels of The Courtauld Gallery’s graphic collection. (from the 2019 exhibition catalogue)

by descent to his son, Paul Cézanne, Paris (1872-1947); purchased from him by Ambroise Vollard, Paris (1867-1939), 1907 [his blue crayon number on verso; listed in his W stockbook as no. 2855]; Justin Thannhauser (Berlin and Lucerne, closed by 1937), 1928 [according to online catalogue]; possibly Galerie Alfred Daber (Paris); Wildenstein & Co. (New York) by 1934 (possibly as early as 1930); purchased from Wildenstein's London office by Samuel Courtauld, London (1876-1947), 8 September 1937 (£3,500); Samuel Courtauld Bequest 1948

See Comments for more information.

The Courtauld Collection. A Vision for Impressionism, Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris, 20/02/2019-17/06/2019

Mantegna to Matisse - Master Drawings from The Courtauld Gallery, The Frick Collection, New York, 02/10/2012-27/01/2013

Mantegna to Matisse - Master Drawings from The Courtauld Gallery, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 14/06/2012-09/09/2012 ...More

Serres, Karen (ed.), The Courtauld Collection: A Vision for Impressionism, Paul Holberton Publishing 2019
no. 44, pp. 222-27
illus. p. 223

Christopher Lloyd, 'Paul Cézanne: Drawings and Watercolours', London 2015
p. 273
illus. 220 on p. 304

Mantegna to Matisse - Master Drawings from The Courtauld Gallery, Frick Collection, New York and Courtauld Gallery, London London 2012-2013
cat. no. 57
illus. p. 253 ...More

Watermark: Recto, running along upper centre of sheet, blindstamped in reverse and repeating: "ANCNE [NE superscript] MANUFRE [RE superscript] CANSON & MONTGOLFIER VIDALON LES ANNONAY"

Inscription: Verso: lower left corner, blue crayon, partially circled, Vollard's number: "13".

Collector's mark: none.