
Read the visual description
A light-skinned man with thick black hair and a squared off black beard, dressed in a black jacket over a gray vest and gray trousers, sits facing us in this vertical portrait painting. This work is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes so some details are difficult to make out. The man's body faces us but he looks down and to our left. The tip of his nose almost matches the coral red of his lips. Two pale peach patches below his mouth break up his beard on his pointed chin. His hands, closed into fists, rest on his thighs, which are cropped by the bottom of the canvas. He wears several layers of clothing. The open black jacket reveals a charcoal-gray vest with a V-shaped opening over another black garment, perhaps an undervest. This is worn over a white shirt, which is visible as bright traingles at this throat and white cuffs at his wrists. The white shirt seems to be tied with a black tie and possibly a gray cravat, but this area is broadly painted. The background is painted with gray strokes over black. The artist signed the painting in black paint in the lower right corner, though it is barely visible: “P. Cezanne.”
National Gallery of Art · Painting
Antony Valabrègue
Paul Cezanne
- Date
- 1866
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- overall: 116.3 x 98.4 cm (45 13/16 x 38 3/4 in.) framed: 144.8 × 127 × 12.7 cm (57 × 50 × 5 in.)
- Classification
- Painting
- Accession number
- 1970.35.1
- Credit line
- Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
- Time span
- 1851 to 1875
- Department
- CF
Subjects and terms
- painted surface
- French
- male
- portrait
- Post-Impressionist
- Valabreque, Antony
Provenance
(Ambroise Vollard [1866-1939], Paris); sold 26 March 1901 to Breysse; resold 1904 to Vollard; sold 1911 through (Bernheim-Jeune) to Auguste Pellerin [1852-1929], Paris;[1] by inheritance to his son, Jean-Victor Pellerin, Paris, until at least 1946.[2] private collection, Zürich. (Wildenstein & Co., London, New York, and Paris), at least in 1947;[3] sold 1966 to Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; gift 1970 to NGA. [1] On the painting's early provenance, see John Rewald, _The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: a Catalogue Raisonné_, New York, 1996: no. 94. [2] The painting was still in the Pellerin collection according to John Rewald, _History of Impressionism_, New York, 1946: 120. [3] The painting was lent by Wildenstein's to a 1947 exhibition.
Inscription
lower right: P.Cezanne
NGA object ID 52389. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.