Description
Straw-Trimmed Vase, Sugar Bowl and Apples – the year was written by the painter’s son
A blue-grey vase bound with straw that crosses over its belly in an X, a white sugar bowl with a small lid beside it, and in front a plate of apples – yellow, yellow-green and russet red-brown. The table is bare, with no cloth, and we see it at a steep angle. The canvas measures 35 × 45 cm, was made between 1890 and 1893 and is held by the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris (Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collection, RF 1963-9). With us the painter’s hand takes it over: a hand-painted painting on canvas, oil on canvas, stretched over a solid stretcher frame.
The painter’s son’s handwriting
In the Vollard archive the photograph of this work carries the number 388, and on it stands a year written in the hand of Cézanne’s son Paul: 1890. The catalogue raisonné places the canvas between 1890 and 1893, so the son’s year does not contradict the scholarship but sits at the opening of that span. The same son had modelled for his father some years earlier – his face is the one worn by Harlequin.
Seven apples, and somebody counted them
While the work sat in Vollard’s stock, the clerk entered it under number 7143 with this description: still life, seven fruits, plate, pitcher, sugar bowl – and measured the canvas at 36 × 46 cm, a centimetre larger each way than the measurement the catalogue gives today. The odd thing is that the description still holds: the apples in the work can be counted to this day, and there really are seven.
The bare table and the knife at the edge
On this canvas there is neither tablecloth nor drape; the objects stand on bare wood that tilts towards the viewer beneath them. Along the right edge lies a knife – the catalogue lists it expressly among the objects – its blade disappearing under the fruit. A straw-bound vase of similar shape appears again in Ginger Pot with Pomegranate and Pears: it is a vessel of the same kind from the painter’s studio.
In colour the work is subdued – grey, blue-grey, ochre – with only two warm accents: the yellow and the russet of the apples. Because there are few objects it stays legible even at large sizes, and it works well in a dining room, a kitchen or an office. The fifteen sizes run from 55 × 43 cm to 180 × 140 cm; because the canvas is a wide one, the smallest measurement starts at 55 cm. In-between measurements we stretch to custom size, and how it will look framed is shown by our 3D preview application. Among our art paintings on canvas it also goes well with Bowl and Milk-Jug.
- Subject: Straw-Trimmed Vase, Sugar Bowl and Apples, Paul Cézanne, 1890-1893, Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris (RF 1963-9)
- Technique: hand-painted painting, oil on canvas, reproduction
- Sizes: 15 dimensions, custom size on request
- Of note: the year 1890 was written on the archive photograph by the painter’s son
