Cézanne painted the same motifs for years: apples on a table, card players, bathers and Mont Sainte-Victoire. Below are his best-known works and where the originals hang. Every work named here is also among the hand-painted reproductions on canvas.
The Card Players – a series of five canvases
The Card Players is not one work but a series of five canvases that Cézanne emptied out step by step in his late years: he began with several figures and onlookers and ended with two men and a bottle on the table. The New York version reached the Metropolitan through the collector Louisine Havemeyer, who on her death in 1929 left the museum 142 paintings and so laid the foundation of its post-impressionist collection.
The record price that belongs to another canvas
The series is also known for one of the highest prices in the history of the art market: in 2011 the Qatari royal family bought a private version with two players from the heirs of the Greek shipowner George Embiricos. The price was never officially confirmed and estimates range between 250 and 320 million dollars. It matters that this is another canvas from the series, not the New York one – and that it was this sale that made the motif known worldwide.
The Basket of Apples – the table that does not line up
The Basket of Apples (about 1893, Art Institute of Chicago) is held by many to be the beginning of the modern still life. The reason is simple and anyone can see it: the front edge of the table does not meet in one line between the left and the right side. Cézanne did not correct it – he assembled the scene from several viewpoints at once, the way the eye actually reads it. It was precisely that break that later became the starting point of cubism.
Mont Sainte-Victoire and the bathers
He painted Mont Sainte-Victoire in dozens of versions, most of them in his last years from the studio at Les Lauves; with each one the mountain was less a scene and more a structure of coloured planes. Alongside them he worked all his life on The Large Bathers – figures in a landscape built without a model, held today by the Barnes Foundation and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Frequently asked questions about Cézanne’s paintings
What is Cézanne’s most famous painting?
The most recognisable are The Card Players, The Basket of Apples and the many versions of Mont Sainte-Victoire.
How many versions of The Card Players are there?
Five. They differ in the number of figures; the New York version is at the Metropolitan, others are at the Courtauld in London, the Musée d’Orsay and in private collections. We carry both as hand-painted reproductions: the New York version and the Courtauld version.
Which Cézanne reached a record price?
A private version of The Card Players, sold in 2011 to the Qatari royal family; estimates range from 250 to 320 million dollars, with no official confirmation.
Can I order a hand-painted reproduction of these works?
Yes. The gallery offers 80 hand-painted Paul Cézanne reproductions on canvas, in fifteen sizes and, by arrangement, made to measure.
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