PAUL CÉZANNE at AUCTION

CHRISTIE’S London, 4 February 2015

PAUL CÉZANNE

Vue sur L’Estaque et Le Château d’If

Christie’s announced the sale of a masterpiece by Paul Cézanne, Vue sur L’Estaque et Le Château d’If, which comes to the market for the first time since it was acquired in 1936 by Samuel Courtauld, the founder of the illustrious Courtauld Gallery and Institute of Art in London (estimate: £8-12 million). The painting remained in Courtauld’s private collection throughout his lifetime and following his generous bequest to the Courtauld Gallery. One of the leading highlights of the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 4 February 2015, this magisterial work was painted circa 1883-1885, during one of the last visits that Cézanne ever made to L’Estaque, a fishing port and small seaside resort in his native Provence, where he sought inspiration repeatedly from the mid-1860s. This is a rare example on a vertical canvas of Cézanne’s treatment of this iconic motif; the format lends the composition stately dignity and remarkable concentration of colour and form.

The splendid panorama – captured in Vue sur L’Estaque et Le Château d’If - from the hilltop above the town, looking over the rooftops toward the bay of Marseille and the distant islands of Frioul, provided the basis for some of the most innovative landscapes of Cézanne’s career, in which he fully realised his goal to “make of Impressionism something solid and enduring like the art in museums.”

The stable and harmonious distribution of forms within the composition, with broad horizontal bands of land, sea, and sky framed by majestic pine trees, is profoundly indebted to the classical landscape tradition of Poussin, which Cézanne used to organise his sensations before nature. At the same time, Cézanne’s constructive transformation of the townscape into an architectural geometry of flat, overlapping planes is powerfully modern, as the next generation of the avant-garde would recognise. “The discovery of his work overturned everything,” exclaimed Braque, who traveled to L’Estaque repeatedly during the formative years of cubism.

Sotheby's 2014

Paul Cézanne

BAIGNEURS

LOT SOLD. 3,666,500 GBP

Paul Cézanne

FEMME ASSISE (MADAME CÉZANNE)

LOT SOLD. 3,554,500 GBP

Paul Cézanne

LE VERGER

LOT SOLD. 338,500 GBP

Sotheby's 2013

Paul Cézanne

LES POMMES

LOT SOLD. 41,605,000 USD

Les Pommes, painted by Cézanne in 1889-90, reveals why his work in the still-life genre is considered among his greatest achievements (est. $25/35 million). These moving compositions, which explore the paradoxes of forms in space, inspired the Cubism of Picasso and Braque and signal the very birth of modern art.

“Les Pommes is one of Cezanne’s most perfect still lifes” commented Charles Moffett, Vice Chairman ofSotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art department. “One could never imagine altering a single brushstroke or touch of color. The painting was a highlight of any visit to the Lewyts’ home, which was filled with works they dearly loved – from small pictures the size of playing cards to important drawings, watercolors and sculpture."