Roses in a Bottle [recto]

1900/1904

Paul Cezanne

Artist, French, 1839 - 1906

A bouquet of at least six red and pink-edged white flowers in a blue bottle is at the center of this vertical, still-life watercolor. Some petals are picked out with blue-gray lines, and the blooms are touched with areas of golden yellow, emerald green, and sky blue around a graphite sketch. The bottom portion of the bottle itself fades away with sketchy lines and washes about three-quarters of the way down the painting. The space behind the flowers is painted with loose strokes making widely spaced, overlapping, diagonal bands filled in with frosty green, mauve pink, smoky pale purple, and muted blue. Another set of bands angling into the composition from the left edge could represent the corner of a table.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    watercolor over graphite on wove paper

  • Credit Line

    Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

  • Dimensions

    overall: 43.6 x 31 cm (17 3/16 x 12 3/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1995.47.26.a

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Rewald 1983, no. 550

Associated Artworks

Waking Up [verso]

Paul Cezanne

1880


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Ambroise Vollard [1867-1939], Paris, by 1936);[1] (Galerie Alfred Daber, Paris); Private collection, Paris; (Paul Rosenberg, New York); Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA, by 1983; gift to NGA, 1995.
[1] See Lionello Venturi, Cézanne Son Art - Son Oeuvre. Paul Rosenberg Éditeur, Paris, 1936, no. 1542.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1977

  • Cézanne: The Late Work. Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1977-1978, no. 71 (recto only).

1978

  • Cézanne, Les dernières années (1895-1906). Grand Palais, Paris, 1978, no. 29bis (recto only).

Bibliography

1936

  • Venturi, Lionello. Cezanne, son art, son oeuvre. 2 vols. Paris, 1936.

1943

  • Venturi, Lionello. Paul Cézanne--Water Colours. London, 1943: 21, pl. 13 (recto); pl. 9 (verso).

1946

  • Schildt, G. Cézanne. Stockholm, 1946: fig. 55 (recto); fig. 65 (verso).

1979

  • Cooper, Douglas. Review of "Cezanne: The Late Work." books and bookmen (April 1979).

  • Rewald, John. Letter to editor. books and bookmen (September 1979).

1983

  • Rewald, John. Paul Cezanne: The Watercolors. Boston: Little, Brown and Company (A New York Graphic Society Book), 1983.

Inscriptions

by later hand, upper left verso in graphite: 42X

Wikidata ID

Q64618928


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