Provenance

Ambroise Vollard

French, 1866 - 1939

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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.
Paul Cezanne, Harlequin, 1888-1890, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.7

Harlequin

Paul Cezanne · 1888-1890 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1985.64.7

Pale beige, angular houses cluster at the center of the horizontal landscape painting. The hilly, rocky landscape around and below the houses is painted with cool blues and greens, and warm ivory and caramel brown beneath a pale blue sky. The artist applied the paint with regular, parallel, straight strokes.
Paul Cezanne, Houses in Provence: The Riaux Valley near L'Estaque, c. 1883, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1973.68.1

Houses in Provence: The Riaux Valley near L'Estaque

Paul Cezanne · c. 1883 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1973.68.1

Across a grassy field, a row of buildings and two trees line the horizon, which comes about halfway up this nearly square landscape painting. The field is painted with visible brushstrokes of sage, moss, and mint green as well as caramel brown, parchment white, and turquoise blue. The trees, to our left of center, are painted with dark green. The buildings have charcoal-gray or terracotta-red roofs with cream-white or slate-blue walls. The sky above is painted with dabs and strokes of ice and baby blue, with areas of pale peach and ivory white to suggest clouds.
Paul Cezanne, Landscape near Paris, c. 1876, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.103

Landscape near Paris

Paul Cezanne · c. 1876 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.103

Three light-skinned girls hold hands to create a loose ring with their arms extended, in a grassy field in this horizontal painting. All three girls wear white headdresses, ankle-length, long-sleeved dresses, and clogs. Each dress has a wide white collar that extends beyond the shoulders. A ruby-red flower is pinned to the brown apron on the two girls whose fronts we see. Their features and clothing are outlined in cobalt blue and filled in with parallel, often visible strokes. To our left, a girl stands with both arms stretched out, one holding the hand of the girl next to her, to our right. The first girl looks off into the distance to our left with dark eyes. She has a button nose, and her peach-colored lips curve down at the corners. Her auburn-red hair is tucked back under her bonnet. Her dress is navy blue, and her stockings are brick red. She steps forward onto her right foot, to our left. The second girl, holding the first girls’ hand, stands facing our right in profile, looking slightly down. Her features are indistinct, but she also seems to have a snub nose and her pink lips are closed. She has blond hair and an emerald-green dress. Her hazelnut-brown stockings match her apron. She also steps forward, but onto her left foot. The third girl stands with her back to us, seen between the first two, as she looks over her shoulder to our right in profile. Her left arm is also raised but her right arm is hidden behind the second girl. The third girl has brown hair and a pointed nose. Her dress is black, and she steps forward onto her right foot. A small dog with brown and white speckled fur sniffs at the grass to our right of the girls. Piles of long grass or hay dot the lemon-lime green field, which dips down behind the girls and to our left to meet a low, stone gray wall. Buildings in plum purple, ivory white, terracotta orange, and ocean blue span the width of the painting beyond the wall. One narrow spire reaches above the other rooflines. Tall, narrow, dark green trees are interspersed among the buildings, and a hill climbs nearly to the top of the canvas to our left. A few thin slate-gray clouds float across a narrow band of shell-pink sky above. The artist signed and dated the work in lower right corner, “P. Gauguin 88.”
Paul Gauguin, Breton Girls Dancing, Pont-Aven, 1888, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1983.1.19

Breton Girls Dancing, Pont-Aven

Paul Gauguin · 1888 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1983.1.19

Six men on horseback and wearing jockeys’ uniforms line up on a grassy field in front of us in this loosely painted horizontal scene. The jockeys and horses’ features are especially freely painted so much of the detail is indistinct. The horses are all chestnut brown except for two at the middle, which are dark brown. One horse, second from our right, rears up on its hind legs, and one to our left nuzzles its neighbor. The riders all wear brimmed caps or helmets, white pants, and knee-high black boots. Their caps and high-necked shirts are painted in shades of goldenrod yellow, aquamarine blue, white, red, or peach. Their faces and hands are peach-colored or light brown. Some of the horses and the rider’s clothing are outlined in black. One of the riders is set a little farther back than the others. A black silhouette in the near distance to our right suggests a man wearing a suit and tall top hat. Swipes of black, brown, sky blue, and white create the impression of a crowd across from us, gathered on the far side of the grassy area. Light green fields continue back to a line of shamrock-green trees at the foot of gently sloping hills. White clouds screen the ice-blue sky above, which takes up the top quarter of the painting. The paint seems thinly applied in many areas, especially the horses and the grassy fields, so the weave of the canvas is visible under strokes of green and brown. The artist signed the lower right corner, “Degas.”
Edgar Degas, The Riders, c. 1885, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 2014.18.7

The Riders

Edgar Degas · c. 1885 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.18.7

A band of several galloping horses and riders move across the center of this vertical painting. The color palette is dominated by blended earthy brown, green, and pale pink. The horses, which have reddish-brown coats and tails, nearly span the width of the painting. They move to our left with their legs fully extended. Underneath the horses’ flying legs lies the body of a man. The felled rider faces upward, his eyes closed and his legs splayed. He has a light brown beard, mustache, and hair, and pale tan skin. He wears brown riding boots with black tops, white breeches, and a pink jersey with black sleeves. His riding helmet, with a matching pink cover, lies behind his head on the ground. At least three additional horses are in the band, and the two foremost have empty saddles. The two horses beyond them, farther into the picture, have male riders, who wear riding outfits and helmets in colors of smudged and blended orange, lavender purple, and green. They also have brown mustaches and beards. The band races through a field painted with a muddy green interspersed with strokes of orange and white. The horizon line is high, just above the level of the horses’ backs, about four-fifths of the way up the painting. Blue sky peeks out amid a mixture of pale pink and yellow clouds above. There are trees in the background indicated by a few strokes and dashes of paint. The painting style is loose and brushy throughout, without sharp detail or lines, except for the sketched-in black lines that delineate the bodies and tack of the horses.
Edgar Degas, Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey, 1866, reworked 1880-1881 and c. 1897, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1999.79.10

Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey

Edgar Degas · 1866, reworked 1880-1881 and c. 1897 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1999.79.10

We look across river at a bridge with a city skyline beyond in this stylized, horizontal landscape, which is painted entirely with broad, visible brushstrokes in vivid, saturated colors. The river spans nearly the width of the canvas, and the riverbank is lined to our left with a row of several buildings between us and the bridge. Those buildings are outlined with royal blue and filled in with mostly flat areas of color in coral pink, mint green, tangerine orange, and pinkish tan. Letters across the top of the building farthest from us reads “BREVER.” Eight boats are tied up at the foot of the buildings. The pointed hulls of three extend into the scene from the lower left corner, painted in marigold orange and outlined in cobalt blue. Five more boats, with rounded prows and hulls and painted with lapis blue and muted aqua, line up like a row of empty shoes. The bridge runs from behind the tallest building to our left across and off the canvas, and is painted with deep lapis blue with crimson-red Xes crisscrossing the span to suggest trestles. The front faces of the pilings below are also highlighted with red. The river fills most of the bottom half of the painting. The water to our left is painted as a field of coral pink with a few, short horizontal baby and cobalt-blue strokes, suggesting reflections of the boats and a bridge piling. A narrow band of kiwi green and sky blue lines the pink field to our right. Next to it, the water is painted as short, horizontal, disconnected strokes and dots mostly in bumblebee yellow with some strokes in bubblegum pink and pale burnt orange, all against the off white of the canvas below. The final zone, to our right, is more densely painted with short dashes in indigo, turquoise, and aqua blue. Beyond the bridge, the skyline is painted in silhouette with spiky spires to our left in mint green and a mass of shorter buildings in periwinkle blue to our right. Four clouds of pale yellow billow off the bridge in front of the skyline. The sky above is painted with short and long vertical strokes of butter yellow, rose pink, pale orange, and a few areas of watermelon pink. The artist signed the work with cobalt-blue paint near the lower left corner: “a derain.”
André Derain, Charing Cross Bridge, London, 1906, oil on canvas, John Hay Whitney Collection, 1982.76.3

Charing Cross Bridge, London

André Derain · 1906 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1982.76.3

A nude boy or young man sits on a gray box and hunches over his foot, next to a second nude boy who stands facing us in this loosely painted, vertical scene. Both boys have light skin with a yellow cast, and their bodies are outlined with delicate brown lines. They both have short-cropped brown hair, and their facial features are sketched in with brown paint. To our left, the boy sitting on the box looks down at his right foot, on our left, which he holds up on the box with both hands. Next to him, the second boy stands with his arms down by his sides and he looks off into the distance to our right. The room is undefined but has a pale, rust-red floor. Behind them, a terracotta-red urn and jug sit on a platform, possibly in a niche in the silvery-gray wall. Brushstrokes are visible throughout. The artist signed the painting in red letters in the upper left corner: “Picasso.”
Pablo Picasso, Two Youths, 1906, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.197

Two Youths

Pablo Picasso · 1906 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.197

A man sitting in a tall, upholstered armchair reads a newspaper in this vertical portrait painting. The man and the room in which he sits is loosely painted with bold, visible strokes throughout. He holds the paper close to his face, and the top edge falls over so we can read the title, “L’EVENEMENT.” He has a light, olive-toned complexion, and his white hair peeks from under a close-fitting black cap. He wears a high-necked white shirt under a chocolate-brown jacket, steel-gray trousers, white socks, and camel-brown shoes. The fabric on the chair is painted with broad brushstrokes to create a loose floral pattern on a white background. The man and chair are outlined in black. The man sits in the corner of a room with a closed door behind him to our right. Hanging on the wall over his head, and partially obscured by it, is a small, possibly unframed, still life painting with what could be kelly-green fruit and a royal-blue cup against a black background.
Paul Cezanne, The Artist's Father, Reading "L'Événement", 1866, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1970.5.1

The Artist's Father, Reading "L'Événement"

Paul Cezanne · 1866 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1970.5.1

A row of structures and a massive weeping willow tree line the clay-orange riverbank opposite us in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is painted loosely with long, visible brushstrokes. Taking up much of the right side of the painting, the tree has emerald, moss, fern, and olive-green leaves with brown and purple trunk and roots. It casts long, gently rippling reflections in the water. The structures to our left are enclosed behind a terracotta-colored wall with a square tower. A second segment of wall, to our left, is charcoal gray. Trees grow up behind the structures. The sky above is painted with mingled strokes of lavender purple, baby blue, and white.
Paul Cezanne, Banks of the Seine at Médan, c. 1885/1890, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.21

Banks of the Seine at Médan

Paul Cezanne · c. 1885/1890 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1970.17.21

Bibliography

1936

  • Vollard, Ambroise. Recollections of a Picture Dealer. Translated by Violet M. MacDonald. Boston, 1936.

1976

  • Fabiani, Martin. Quand j'etais marchand de tableaux. Paris, c. 1976.

1977

  • Russell, John. "Out of nowhere, he became the top art dealer in Paris." Smithsonian 8, no 4 (July 1977): 68+.

1978

  • Monneret, Sophie, L'Impressionnisme et son Époque 4 vols. Paris, 1978-1981:III:56-58.

1994

  • Nicholas, Lynn H. The Rape of Europa. New York, 1995: 92-93, 425.

1995

  • Cezanne. Exh. cat. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1995: 572.

2006

  • Rabinow, Rebecca, ed. Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, PAtron of the Avant-Garde. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006.