{"id":181264,"date":"2026-08-08T14:44:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T12:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/?post_type=product&p=181264"},"modified":"2026-08-08T14:44:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T12:44:50","slug":"self-portrait-with-a-soft-hat","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/en\/paul-cezanne\/self-portrait-with-a-soft-hat\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul C\u00e9zanne \u2013 Self-Portrait with a Soft Hat"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Self-Portrait with a Soft Hat \u2013 in the catalogue the hat is a heading of its own<\/h2>\n

The painter has shown himself at a three-quarter turn: the body faces left, the head to the right. On his head sits a soft olive-ochre hat with the brim bent down, its shadow cutting across the forehead; beneath it appear a high brow and a large ear, and the face carries a thick grey-green beard. The coat is dark blue-green, laid on in broad strokes. Behind him stands a wall of green, grey and dull mauve patches. The canvas measures 60 \u00d7 49 cm, was made in 1894 and is today in Tokyo, at the Artizon Museum<\/strong>. Here the painter\u2019s hand takes it over: a hand-painted painting on canvas<\/strong>, oil on canvas.<\/p>\n

Why the hat gets its own heading<\/h3>\n

The catalogue raisonn\u00e9 files this canvas under two headings at once: self-portrait<\/strong> and, separately, self-portrait with hat<\/strong>. The second heading exists not for reasons of fashion but of quantity: the same face returns so often in this body of work that the face alone will no longer tell one canvas from another. The headgear becomes the mark: by it you know which canvas is which. The hat here is therefore not an ornament but the detail by which the work is found again.<\/p>\n

A year that two records confirm<\/h3>\n

The dating of this work stands unusually firm. Rewald places it in 1894, and Vollard\u2019s archive photograph, numbered 92, carries a note bearing the same year. Venturi\u2019s older listing wavered between 1890 and 1894, but the newer sources settle on 1894. That two independent records should meet on a single year is not the rule with C\u00e9zanne \u2013 more often they diverge.<\/p>\n

The journey to Tokyo and the unfinished edge<\/h3>\n

From Vollard\u2019s shop, by way of Paris collections, the work went to Japan surprisingly early: it was in Tokyo by December 1920, fourteen years after the painter\u2019s death, and has stayed there since. Along the left margin and at the lower left the canvas is not covered at all \u2013 the bare priming lies open, which is common in this painter and of which Poplars<\/a> speaks more precisely. Another face from the same body of work is worn by Harlequin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The portrait is built on three masses: the hat, the beard and the coat, all three dark, with the face between them the only warm surface. The work therefore stays quiet even in a small room and asks for no strong light; it stands well in a study, a library or a hallway. Because the canvas is upright, the smallest size begins at 41 \u00d7 50 cm and the largest measures 148 \u00d7 180 cm. Intermediate measurements we stretch to custom size<\/strong> on the stretcher frame, and how it will look framed is shown by our 3D rendering application<\/strong>. From the same Tokyo museum, among our art paintings on canvas<\/strong>, comes Bowl and Milk-Jug<\/a> as well.<\/p>\n