Still Life with Apples and Peaches

c. 1905

Paul Cezanne

Artist, French, 1839 - 1906

About a dozen rust-orange and golden yellow apples and peaches are arranged on a white plate next to white and floral-patterned cloths nestled around a white pitcher and bowl, all on a wood tabletop that tilts toward us in this nearly square still life painting. A curtain patterned with royal blue, olive green, and beige falls along or near the back wall of the room and rests on the table to our left. The white pitcher is painted loosely with the suggestion of harvest-gold and pale lilac-purple flowers, and it sits amid the pooling folds of the curtain to our left. The white tablecloth is bunched under and next to it to our right, at the middle of the composition. The fruit is arranged on and around a white plate next to the tablecloth. A tall bowl with fluted sides and a ruffled, scalloped rim sits behind the fruit, near the right edge of the table. The curving skirt of the table reaches nearly to the bottom edge of the canvas. All the objects in the painting are outlined with dark blue and the shadows are painted with patches of spruce and cobalt blue.

Media Options

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"The eye must grasp, bring things together," Cézanne said, "The brain will give it shape." In a still life, where the artist also creates the world he paints, each object, each placement, each viewpoint represents a decision. Cézanne painted and repainted the objects pictured here many times. The table, patterned cloth, and flowered pitcher were all props he kept in his studio. Every different arrangement was a new exploration of forms and their relationships.

Here the table tilts unexpectedly, defying traditional rules of perspective. Similarly, we see the pitcher in profile but are also allowed a look down into it. Paradoxically, it is Cézanne's fidelity to what he saw that accounts for this "denial" of logic and three–dimensional space. It is not so much that he is deliberately flattening space. Rather he is concentrating on the objects themselves instead of the perspectival scheme—the "box of air"—in which they exist. Cézanne worked slowly and deliberately. Over the course of days, he would move his easel, painting different objects—or even the same one—from different points of view. Each time, he painted what he saw. It was his absorption in the process of painting that pushed his work toward abstraction.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer

  • Dimensions

    overall: 81 x 100.5 cm (31 7/8 x 39 9/16 in.)
    framed: 108.9 x 128.3 cm (42 7/8 x 50 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1959.15.1

More About this Artwork

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Ambroise Vollard [1866-1939], Paris). Edward Steichen [1879-1973] purchased 1912 for Eugene [1875-1959] and Agnes Ernst Meyer [1887-1970], Mount Kisco, New York, and Washington, D.C.;[1] gift 1959 to NGA.
[1] For Steichen's role, see letter dated 12 July 1977 from Katherine Graham in NGA curatorial files; lent by the Meyers to the 1921 Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1921

  • Loan Exhibition of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1921, no. 17, as Still Life - Peaches.

1923

  • Loan, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1923

1977

  • Cézanne: The Late Work, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Grand Palais, Paris, 1977

1998

  • Cézanne Picasso Braque: Der Beginn des kubistischen Stillebens", Kunstmuseum Basel, 1998, no. 1, repro.

2009

  • Cézanne and American Modernism, Montclair Art Museum; The Baltimore Museum of Art; Phoenix Art Museum, 2009-2010, no. 21, repro. (shown only in Montclair and Baltimore).

2011

  • Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The National Art Center, Tokyo; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 2011, no. 12, repro.

Bibliography

1923

  • Bulletin of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1923): 263.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 25.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 18, repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 60, repro.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 499, no. 737, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 79, repro.

1991

  • Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 165, color repro.

1996

  • Rewald, John. The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: a catalogue raisonné. 2 vols. New York, 1996:no. 936, repro.

1997

  • Kelder, Diane. The Great Book of French Impressionism. New York, 1997: no. 367, repro.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 391, no. 326, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20190984

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