Description
Fruit and a Jug on a Table – the painting that found no buyer at auction
A stoneware jug with a thick loop handle, a white oval dish of apples and peaches, and beside it a yellow lemon lying straight on the cloth. The whole group stands on a blue-grey patterned drape, and the wall behind is painted in open parallel strokes. The canvas is small, measuring 32.4 × 40.6 cm, was made in 1893-1894 and is held by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (acc. 48.524, bequest of John T. Spaulding). With us the painter’s hand takes it over: a hand-painted painting on canvas, oil on canvas, stretched over a solid stretcher frame.
Bought at Cézanne’s first one-man exhibition
In November 1895 Ambroise Vollard mounted the first one-man exhibition of Paul Cézanne in his own gallery. It ran from 11 November to 15 December, and while it was open, on 26 November 1895, this canvas was bought by the Paris collector Eugène Blot. The painter was fifty-six at the time and all but unknown to a wider public.
Twice at the Drouot
In May 1900 Blot put his collection up for sale at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris. This work was lot 22 – and against it the catalogue records bought in, that is, unsold: no bid reached the reserve, and the work went back to its owner. Blot tried again only six years later, on 10 May 1906, and that time, as lot 19, it found a buyer. Cézanne died five months afterwards.
The same blue cloth as The Peppermint Bottle
The drape with its large curling leaves and stripes is not an invented backdrop but a piece of fabric from the painter’s studio. For this canvas and for The Peppermint Bottle the catalogue enters it under the same wording – blue patterned cloth – so it is one prop in two different scenes. On the right, behind the jug, the dark shape of a chair suggests itself, which the catalogue also lists.
Fruit and a Jug on a Table is a work of opposites: the cool blue fabric below, a glowing orange and red at the centre, and on the left one single yellow lemon that opens the whole thing up. The small number of objects keeps it legible even at large sizes, and it works well above a sideboard, in a kitchen or in a dining room. The fifteen sizes run from 50 × 40 cm to 180 × 144 cm, and in-between measurements we stretch to custom size. How it will look framed is shown by our 3D preview application. Among our art paintings on canvas it is nicely completed by The Peppermint Bottle and Still Life with Milk Jug and Fruit, and for more apples there is The Basket of Apples.
- Subject: Fruit and a Jug on a Table, Paul Cézanne, 1893-1894, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (48.524)
- Technique: hand-painted painting, oil on canvas, reproduction
- Sizes: 15 dimensions, custom size on request
- Of note: at the 1900 auction it went unsold and returned to its owner
