The Basket of Apples

CC0 Public Domain Designation

c. 1893

Paul Cezanne (French, 1839–1906)

In many ways Paul Cezanne was the odd man out among the artists branded as “Impressionists”—those who showed their works outside of France’s state-sponsored Salon exhibitions. Early on, he painted landscapes, the typical Impressionist subject, but his arresting and complex still lifes changed the traditional nature morte (dead nature) genre and continue to puzzle and tantalize today.

At first glance, The Basket of Apples, the first of Cezanne’s works to enter the museum’s collection, appears to be a fruit-laden table setting anchored by a wine bottle. Closer looking reveals shifts in reality conveyed by the misaligned tabletop, tilted bottle, cascading apples, and the precarious tower of cookies known as langues de chat (cat tongues), which magically stop just short of falling out of the picture. Furthering the sense of what has been called the artist’s “controlled chaos” are the shifts in brushwork from the thick strokes used to model fruits within the cloth’s thick sculptural forms to the sketch-like marks used around the edges of both the table and the cloth. Cezanne rarely signed his paintings, so his signature at the bottom left suggests the importance he ascribed to this painting or to its original owner.

Status: On View, Gallery 248
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Paul Cezanne
Title: The Basket of Apples
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1887–1900
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Inscribed at lower left: P. Cézanne
Dimensions: 65 × 80 cm (25 7/16 × 31 1/2 in.); Framed: 88 × 104.2 × 9.6 cm (34 5/8 × 41 × 3 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection
Reference Number: 1926.252
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/111436/manifest.json

Emile Bernard, “Erinnerungen an Paul Cezanne,” Kunst und Künstler 6 (1908), p. 521 (ill.).
Julius Meier-Greafe, Paul Cézanne (Munich, 1910), p. 79 (ill.).
C. L. Hind, The Post-Impressionists (London, 1911), p. 74.
Frederick Lawton, “Paul Cézanne,” Art Journal (1911), p. 57 (ill.).
Werner Weisbach, Impressionismus: Ein Problem der Malerei in der Antike und Neuzeit vol. 2 (Berlin, 1911), p. 162.
Arsène Alexandre, “Exposition d’art moderne,” Les Arts (August 1912), p. 7, no. 6.
“A Private Collection in Germany That Contains Fourteen Examples of the Art of Paul Cezanne, a Great Modern, Who Already Is Placed with the Old Masters,” New York Times (July 6, 1913), p. 15 (ill.).
Charles Borgmeyer, The Master Impressionists (Chicago, 1913), p. 230 (ill.).
Julius Meier-Graefe, Paul Cézanne (Munich, 1913), p. 76.
Ambroise Vollard, Cézanne (Paris, 1914), p. 102, pl. 33.
Stuart, “Cézanne and His Place in Impressionism,” The Fine Arts Journal 35, 5 (May 1917), p. 335 (ill.).
C. Coquiot, Paul Cézanne (1919), p. 246.
Julius Meier-Graefe, Cezanne und sein Kreis (Munich, 1922), p. 185 (ill.).
L’Amour de l’Art 5, 2 (February 1924), p. 41 (ill.).
Modern Paintings in the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial from the Birch-Bartlett Collection (Chicago: Art Institute, 1926), 2, pl. 3.
R. Tatlock, “The Courtlaud Trust,” The Art News 24 (June 12, 1926), p. 28, ill.
“Cezanne, Rousseau, Picasso,” The Art Institute of Chicago Bulletin 20 (1926), pp. 61-64 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago Annual Report (1926), p. 16, ill.
Forbes Watson, “A Note on the Birch-Bartlett Collection,” The Arts 9 (1926), p. 304 (ill.).
Morton Dauwen Zabel, “An American Gallery of Modern Painting,” Art and Archeology 26, 6 (December 1928), pp. 227 (ill.). 232.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Modern Paintings in the Helen Birch-Bartlett Memorial Collection (Chicago, 1929), pp. 8-9 (ill.).
A. Bertram, The World’s Masters–Cezanne (London, 1929), pl. 22.
Albert Franz Cochrane, “Fogg Museum Stages Magnificent Exhibition of French Art,” Boston Evening (March 9, 1929).
Clarence Bulliet, Apples and Madonnas (New York, 1930), p. 56.
Lionello Venturi, Cézanne: son art – son oeuvre vol. 1 (Paris, 1936), no. 600.
E. A. Jewell, Paul Cézanne (1944), p. 21 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, A Brief Guide to the Collections (The Art Institute of Chicago, 1956), p. 36.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), pp. 72-3.
Frederick A. Sweet, “Great Chicago Collectors,” Apollo 84 (September 1966), p. 194, fig. 14.
John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (New York, 1970), p. 99 (ill.).
René Huyghe, La Relève du reel: impressionnisme, symbolisme (Paris, 1974), no. 191.
Diane Kelder, The Great Book of French Impressionism (New York, 1980), pp. 408-9 (ill.).
Paul Cézanne, exh. cat. (Madrid, Museo Epañol de Arte Conemporáneo, 1984), p. 235 (ill.).
Richard R. Brettell, “The Bartletts and the Grande Jatte: Collecting Modern Paintings in the 1920s,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 12, 2 (1986), p. 105, no. 1 (ill.).
James Wood, Master Paintings in The Art Institute (Chicago, 1988), p. 69 (ill.).
Richard Verdi, Cézanne (London, 1992), p. 143, fig. 123.
John Rewald, The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné (New York, 1996), vol. 1, p. 480, no. 800, vol. 2, p. 276 (ill.).
The Age of Impressionism at the Art Institute of Chicago (New Haven and London, 2008), cat. 67, pp. 141-42 (ill.).
Achim Borchardt-Hume, Gloria Groom, Caitlin Haskell and Natalia Sidlina, eds., Cezanne, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2022), 38, 50-51, 128 cat. 56, 129.
James Rondeau, ed., Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the collection (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2025), 91 (ill.).
James Rondeau, ed., Highlights of the Art Institute of Chicago (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2026), 142, 261–62, no. 105, (ill.).

Paris, Galerie Vollard, Cézanne, Nov–Dec. 1895, no cat.
Berlin, Paul Cassirer, Sonderausstellung Paul Cézanne, Apr. 22–June 15, 1904, no cat. , as Korb mit Äpfeln.
Berlin, Paul Cassirer, XI. Jahrgang, Winter 1908/1909, II. Ausstellung, Oct. 15–Nov. 10, 1908, cat. 17, as Apfel, Flasche und Kuchen.
Paris, Manzi, Joyant & Cie, Exposition d’art moderne, June 6–July 6, 1912, cat. 3, as Pommes.
Paris, Paul Rosenberg, Art français du XIXe siècle au profit de l’Association Générale des mutilés de la guerre, June 25–July 13, 1917, cat. 5, as Corbeille de pommes.
Paris, Galerie Paul Rosenberg, L’art français au XIXe siècle, 1919, no cat.
Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Cézanne, Dec. 1–18, 1920, cat. 28, as Les Pommes.
Paris, Paul Rosenberg, Exposition d’oeuvres de grands maîtres du siècle dix-neuvième siècle, May 3–June 3, 1922, cat. 9, as Le panier de pommes, 1885.
Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Exposition Paul Cézanne (au profit de la caisse du monument Cézanne), Mar. 3–24, 1924, no cat.
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Modern French Paintings from the Birch-Bartlett Collection, Apr. 1925, no cat..
Cambridge, MA, Fogg Art Museum, French Painting of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Mar. 6–Apr. 6, 1929, cat. 6 (ill.), as La Corbeille de pommes.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June1–Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 305.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–Nov. 1, 1934, cat. 290.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Museum of Art, Cézanne, Nov. 10–Oct. 10, 1934, cat. 17, as c. 1885.
Art Institute of Chicago, Modern Paintings in the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial from the Birch Bartlett Collection, 1946, no cat. no. (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, Cézanne: Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings; A Loan Exhibition, Feb. 7–Mar. 16, 1952, cat. 54 (ill.), as Still Life: The Basket of Apples, 1890–94; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Apr. 4–May 18, 1952.
Washington, DC, The Phillips Collection, Cézanne: An Exhibition in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Phillips Collection, Feb. 27–Mar. 28, 1971, cat. 25 (ill.), as c. 1895;Art Institute of Chicago, Apr. 17–May 16, 1971; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, June 1–July 3, 1971 [Chicago only].
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cézanne to Picasso Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, Sept. 13, 2006–Jan. 7, 2007, cat. 44 (ill.); Art Institute of Chicago, February 17-May 13, 2007; Paris, Musée d’Orsay, as De Cézanne à Picasso: Chefs-d’Oeuvre de la galerie Vollard, June 18–Sept. 16, 2007, cat. 32.
Fort Worth, TX, Kimbell Museum of Art, The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago, June 29–Nov.mber 2, 2008, cat. 67.
Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Cézanne and the Past: Tradition and Creativity, Oct. 25, 2012–Feb. 17, 2013, cat. 103.
Art Institute of Chicago, Cezanne, May 15–Sep. 5, 2022, cat. 56; London, Tate, Oct. 5, 2022–Mar. 12, 2023.

Ambroise Vollard (1866–1939), Paris by Nov. 1895 [this and the following information according to New York 2006-7]; Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris [Bernheim-Jeune archive; 5538?]. Paul Cassirer, Berlin, June 1, 1904 [Paul Cassirer archive 5775 (5538)]; Max Linde, Lübeck, Germany, June 1, 1904. Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, by July 1907; sent to Paul Cassirer, Berlin, July 1907; returned to Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, Nov. 1908. Jos Hessel (1859–1942), Paris, by 1913 until at least 1920 [based on inscription on reverse; see also New York Times 1913, Borgmeyer 1913, Paris 1920]. Paul Rosenberg, Paris, by 1922 [see Paris 1922]; sold through Joseph Stransky of French Galleries, New York to Frederick Clay Bartlett (1873–1593), Chicago , by 1925; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1926.

Rewald 800

Feilchenfeldt, Warman and Nash FWN 860

Venturi 600

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