Harlequin

1888-1890

Paul Cezanne

Artist, French, 1839 - 1906

A cleanshaven man wearing a black and red diamond-patterned costume and holding a white wooden sword tucked under one arm stands in a room with a blue background in this vertical painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes that make patches of mottled color. The man stands with his body angled to our right and seems to look down in that direction, though the dark eyes are loosely painted. His right eyebrow, closer to us, is a dark, curving arch. Touches of pink suggest rosy cheeks, and only a subtle swipe of pink suggests a mouth, which appears to be missing when seeing this work from afar. An arctic-blue cap curves widely down over the ears like an upside-down crescent moon. Some transparent swipes of black could be a lace or feather collar around the costume’s neckline. The hand we see, near the end of the sword, is oversized and painted in tones of fog blue and beige. The right foot steps in front of the left. He wears black shoes, and the toes are turned out. The wall behind the man is dappled with spruce blue, laurel green, and some touches of pinkish tan. A darker baseboard separates the wall from the floor below, which is made with patches of sky blue, rust red, pale pink, and olive green. The swag of a curtain, in shades of goldenrod yellow and muted teal blue, hangs on the wall behind the person’s head.

Media Options

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Cézanne painted the austere and elegant Harlequin, one of four costume pieces including a Mardi Gras showing Harlequin and Pierrot and three variants focusing on Harlequin, between 1888 and 1890. The artist's son Paul posed for Harlequin. Sensitively portrayed in Mardi Gras, his face in Harlequin was replaced by an impassive mask, a further, more abstract stage in Cézanne's development of the theme. Harlequin's traditional diamond patterned costume, bicorn hat, and the wooden sword that denoted his buffoonery have appealed to artists from the eighteenth century to the twentieth, and the character appears in Watteau's Italian Comedians and Picasso's Family of Saltimbanques. The opulent red and blue color scheme and lush surface texture are appropriate to Harlequin's theatrical origin, yet Cézanne emphasized the remoteness of the solitary figure.

Pissarro brought Cézanne into the impressionist movement and Cézanne showed in the first and third exhibitions, but in the late 1870s he stopped exhibiting in Paris and withdrew to Aix. Through the patient scrutiny of nature that Pissarro had advised and which Cézanne pursued in virtual isolation there, the dark and expressionistic execution that characterized his early work was transformed into his profoundly meditative late style.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 84

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

  • Dimensions

    overall: 101 x 65 cm (39 3/4 x 25 9/16 in.)
    framed: 135.9 x 101.6 x 8.9 cm (53 1/2 x 40 x 3 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1985.64.7

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Ambroise Vollard [1867-1939], Paris). Schuffenecker, Paris.[1] Auguste Pellerin [1852-1929], Paris; by inheritance to Jean Victor Pellerin, Paris; sold 1967 through (Cambio and Valorenbank) to Mr. Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA;[2] gift 1985 to NGA.
[1] According to John Rewald, The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: a Catalogue Raisonné, New York, 1996, no. 620.
[2] According to Mellon collection records in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1932

  • Exhibition of French Art 1200-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1932, no. 515

1986

  • Gifts to the Nation: Selected Acquisitions from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986, unnumbered checklist, repro.

1995

  • Cézanne, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Tate Gallery, London; Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1995-1996, no. 124, repro. (shown only in Paris and Philadelphia).

1999

  • Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 1999, no. 52, repro.

  • Around Impressionism: French Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1999, no cat.

2009

  • Picasso Cézanne, Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, 2009-2010, no. 71, repro.

2011

  • Loan for display with permanent collection, Art Institute of Chicago, February - May 2011.

2012

  • Cézanne and the Past. Tradition and Creativity, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest, 2012-2013, no. 66, repro.

2017

  • Der verborgene Cezanne: vom Skizzenbuch zur Leinwand [The Hidden Cézanne: From Sketchbook to Canvas], Kunstmuseum Basel, 2017, no. O81, repro.

Bibliography

1991

  • Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 5, color repro.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 199, repro.

1996

  • Rewald, John. The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: a catalogue raisonné. 2 vols. New York, 1996:no. 620, repro.

2001

  • Southgate, M. Therese. The Art of JAMA II: Covers and Essays from The Journal of the American Medical Association. Chicago, 2001: 42-43, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q9159850

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