The Vase of Tulips
c. 1890
Oil on canvas; 59.6 × 42.3 cm (23 1/2 × 16 5/8 in.)
The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection, 1933.423
FWN 826
The Vase of Tulips is one of a pair of paintings by Cezanne that represent red tulips in a green stoneware vase on an occasional table, the other being Tulips in a Vase (fig. 8.1), now in the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. The presence of these items indicates that both works were painted not in Paris, as has sometimes been argued, but in Cezanne’s family home in Aix-en-Provence, the Jas de Bouffan.[1]1
Fig. 8.1
Paul Cezanne (French, 1839–1906). Tulips in a Vase, 1889–90 (FWN 827). Oil on paper, mounted on board; 72.4 × 41.9 cm (28 1/2 × 16 1/2 in.). Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena, California, Gift of Mr. Norton Fund, M.1976.12.P.
The Table
This conclusion rests on the assumption that the table is the same in each painting. Since its top appears slightly grayish in both by comparison with the structure below, this seems reasonable.[2] To judge from the Chicago painting, the table had a scalloped apron and cabriole legs (fig. 8.2). It appears in three other oils and (possibly) three watercolors.[3] In the background of two of these, Still Life with Onions (fig. 8.3) and Seated Woman (fig. 8.4), there is a thin, horizontal red band above the broader dark-blue skirting at floor level. This also appears in several paintings known to have been executed at the Jas de Bouffan, or one of the buildings on the property.[4] Among these are a series of portraits of local workers, including Peasant Standing with Arms Crossed (fig. 8.5).[5] With regard to these, Paul Alexis wrote to Émile Zola on February 13, 1891, that “during the day, he [Cezanne] paints at the Jas de Bouffan, [where] a worker serves as his model.”[6] Similarly, in 1896 Joachim Gasquet described seeing a work underway at the Jas, An Old Woman with a Rosary (fig. 8.6), which exhibits a similar red band.[7]2
Figs. 8.2–8.6
Fig. 8.2
Detail of the table’s cabriole legs and scalloped apron in Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.3
Paul Cezanne. Still Life with Onions, 1896–98 (FWN 866). Oil on canvas; 66 × 82 cm (23 × 32 5/16 in.). Musée d’Orsay, Paris, gift of Auguste Pellerin, RF 2817.
Fig. 8.4
Paul Cezanne. Seated Woman, 1902–4 or earlier (FWN 1778). Graphite and watercolor on paper; 48 × 36 cm (17 7/8 × 14 3/16 in.). Judy and Michael Steinhardt, New York.
Fig. 8.5
Paul Cezanne. Peasant Standing with Arms Crossed, c. 1895 (FWN 508). Oil on canvas; 82.5 × 59 cm (32 1/2 × 23 1/4 in.). Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, BF209.
Fig. 8.6
Paul Cezanne. Old Woman with a Rosary, c. 1895–96 (FWN 515). Oil on canvas; 80.6 × 65.5 cm (31 3/4 × 25 13/16 in.). The National Gallery, London, NG6195.
The Vase of Tulips may have been painted in the Grand Salon on the ground floor of the home, since Cezanne’s niece Marthe Conil claims—perhaps unreliably—that she saw him at work there after his father’s death in 1886.[8] If true, this would have been prior to 1891, since she also claims to have seen Mardi Gras (1888; FWN 668), which was sold to Victor Chocquet that year, in this improvised studio.[9] The Jas was not sold until 1899, and the style of The Vase of Tulips and Tulips in a Vase suggests they were both painted around 1890.3
The Olive Jar
The jar in The Vase of Tulips is a traditional Provençal green-glazed olive jar with a shoulder and no handles of the kind John Rewald photographed in Cezanne’s Lauves studio around 1936 (fig. 8.7). (The lower part of the pot is left unglazed so that it can be kept cool when buried in the ground.) The jar in the Pasadena still life is similar, although its glaze does not form a straight line but runs downward in one place.[10] This could indicate that Cezanne painted two different vases or that he simply rotated the vase between the two pictures.4
Fig. 8.7
Objects in Cezanne’s Lauves studio, including an olive jar (right). From John Rewald, “Iconographie de Cézanne,” L’amour de l’art 17, no. 5 (May 1936): 188.
It has been argued that the presence of a jar of this kind in the Pasadena painting does not in itself guarantee that it was painted in Provence, since similar jars can be found in paintings made in Paris.[11] There are, however, only two paintings representing green olive jars that can be securely assigned to Paris, which Cezanne made in his studio at 67, rue de l’Ouest in 1877.[12] And at least one painting depicting such a jar, The Card Players (fig. 8.8), was unquestionably painted on the Jas property.[13]5
Fig. 8.8
Paul Cezanne. The Card Players, 1890–92 (FWN 681). Oil on canvas; 135.3 × 181.9 cm (53 1/4 × 71 5/8 in.). Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, BF564.
Tulips
In his biography of Peiresc, Pierre Gassendi records that the very first tulip grown in France was cultivated by the polymath in his garden at Aix in 1611.[14] It is no surprise, then, that three centuries later, Karl Osthaus recalled of his visit to Cezanne in April 1906: “As we strolled through the fields in the evening, thousands of red tulips spread their fire into the green of the new growth.”[15]6
According to an article of 1881 by one Emmanuel Briard in the Feuille des jeunes naturalistes, there were three species of red tulips (and two of yellow) under cultivation in Aix.[16] But only two of the red varieties were widely distributed: Tulipa praecox Ten and Tulipa oculus-solis Saint-Amans. The closed, freshly picked flower heads in the Pasadena painting resemble the flower heads of the former (fig. 8.9); and the spreading, pointed petals of the open flowers in the Chicago picture resemble those of the latter (fig. 8.10). It would seem, then, that the two flowers in The Vase of Tulips are different from the four in Tulips in a Vase, and not the remnants of these. Briard’s article even makes it possible to determine the sequence of the two paintings, since it states that Tulipa praecox Ten bloomed in Aix around March 10, and Tulipa oculus-solis Saint-Amans only after March 20.[17] This indicates that Tulips in a Vase was begun first, and its sister some two weeks later.[18]7
Fig. 8.9
Left: Detail of Cezanne’s Tulips in a Vase (1889–90). Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena, California, M.1976.12.P. Right: Tulipa praecox Ten. From Pharmanatur, https://www.pharmanatur.com/Plantes%20prot/Tulipa%20praecox.htm.
Fig. 8.10
Left: Detail of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423. Right: Tulipa oculus-solis Saint-Amans. From Natura Mediterraneo, posted by ciuppy, March 21, 2008, https://naturamediterraneo.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=44092.
This conclusion assumes that Cezanne painted real tulips in both compositions and not artificial flowers, as he was known to do in other works. It is highly likely that the tulips depicted were real, since the flower at the left of Tulips in a Vase is shedding a petal.[19] The leaves of the tulips in this picture have the corrugated appearance they assume when cut, and they are also wilting. (If Cezanne painted fresh flowers in the Chicago painting, this would also explain why, in contrast, its foliage is not doing so.) The other flower depicted in the Pasadena picture seems to be a wallflower, which blossoms in spring. The white and yellow flowers in The Vase of Tulips are spring blooms as well—most likely narcissi, or daffodils, and wildflowers.[20] It makes little sense, therefore, to believe that Cezanne would have used artificial flowers for such specifically seasonal blooms. 8
There are nevertheless several reports of Cezanne using “paper flowers,” notably from his gallerist, Ambroise Vollard.[21] Letters from Cezanne to Vollard in 1902 and 1903 make it clear that he did complete the “large bouquet of artificial flowers” that Léo Larguier saw in the rue Boulegon studio.[22] Evidently, though, Cezanne used artificial flowers for this painting precisely because it was so large (at just over a meter tall) and, consequently, took so long to paint. Similarly, Paul-Louis Gachet recalled that the artist had difficulty painting from real flowers when working on a larger format at his father’s house in the 1870s, which is why Dr. Gachet urged him to make smaller paintings.[23] He wrote, “It is certain that in Auvers, Cezanne never resorted to the artificial flowers mentioned by Vollard. The flowers painted at the Doctor’s are daring works, with a solid, complete technique and—extraordinarily—almost dashed off in one go. After the Bouquet de Dahlias (au grand Delft) … Gachet suggested that—to compensate for the slowness of Cezanne’s craft—he should paint smaller canvases, hence the three Bouquets (au petit Delft).”[24]9
The fact, therefore, that The Vase of Tulips is significantly smaller (at 59.6 × 42.3 cm) than Tulips in a Vase (72.4 × 41.9 cm) suggests that working on a reduced scale allowed Cezanne to bring the former closer to fruition (“réalisation”) than its precursor.[25] The larger Pasadena painting is, in any event, more thinly painted across much of its surface, particularly in the tabletop (fig. 8.11). The colors in these areas are correspondingly less saturated than they are in its sister in Chicago (fig. 8.12). The two paintings thus exemplify the earlier and later stages of the process Cezanne described to Émile Bernard when he advised him “to start lightly with almost neutral tons, and then to keep moving up the scale, tightening the color relationships more and more.”[26]
10
Fig. 8.11
Detail of tabletop in Cezanne’s Tulips in a Vase (1889–90). Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena, California, M.1976.12.P.
Fig. 8.12
Detail of tabletop in Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fruit
All contemporary accounts concur that Cezanne painted real fruit in his still lifes; only later commentators suggest he did not.[27] In Gasquet’s recollection, Cezanne liked “fruits” because they were “more faithful” than flowers, and even presented themselves “as if begging forgiveness for fading.”[28] Bernard specified more precisely in his 1907 memoir that Cezanne’s slow procedure required “unripe fruit.”[29] Similarly, R. P. Rivière and Jacques Schnerb recalled seeing “fruits” in one of Cezanne’s studios when they visited them in January 1905.[30] And Vollard recollected how “apples were left to rot” in the studio.[31] Most unambiguous of all is Larguier’s description of Cezanne’s studio in the rue Boulegon: “In every corner were dried or spoilt fruits, the kind he used for his still lifes… . He had just finished a small painting: apples and one of those pots in which you put olives in Provence … taking a knife from his pocket, he split one of the two apples and offered me half. It was red and shiny, but it was not very good.”[32]11
Although apples are picked from August to October, they can be stored for several months. There is no anomaly, therefore, in Cezanne’s inclusion of an apple alongside spring flowers in The Vase of Tulips. It is difficult to identify which variety Cezanne painted since, by 1777, more than sixty were under cultivation in Provence, at least forty of which were still being grown in the nineteenth century.[33] The most common varieties nonetheless included the calville d’été and the reinette dorée, both yellow and red apples similar to the one in The Vase of Tulips.[34]12
Oranges are picked from November through June, so there is every reason to believe that those in The Vase of Tulips were fresh. Like tulips, they first appeared in France in Provence, when the Crusaders brought them to Hyères in 1254.[35] Oranges flourished in the nineteenth century at Saint-Henri (in L’Estaque) and the Étang de Berre, both areas in which Cezanne spent time, and an orangerie was constructed in Marseille in 1801.[36]13
Varieties of orange are difficult to distinguish, and at least ten edible kinds were cultivated in the Midi in the mid-nineteenth century, although fewer are listed as “common” by the end of the century.[37] It is worth noting, nevertheless, that the only indigenous French orange said to be sweet enough for commercial exploitation was the “orange de Provence et de Var.”[38] Like the flowers and the jar, therefore, and perhaps the apple too, oranges lend The Vase of Tulips a distinctly Provençal flavor. 14
Color Harmony
Painting flowers and fruit undoubtedly gave Cezanne considerable freedom vis-à-vis the distribution of colors. Osthaus clearly realized this when he stated that the tapestries in Aix Cathedral (fig. 8.13) were “reminiscent of Cezanne’s paintings”: “Their colors did not express distance; on the contrary, they seemed to be so completely interwoven with the surface that the space they decorated felt pleasantly firm… . What was the reason for this affinity? Was there something in them that, perhaps unbeknownst to the master, went beyond the Impressionist vision of depth? The latest developments in painting have taught us this. It appreciates, more than the value of space, the distribution of colors in the picture, the bouquet that the master’s hand knows how to weave from tones as if they were flowers.”[39] Osthaus, in other words, regarded Cezanne’s activity reductively, as a decorative enterprise equivalent to flower arranging. Bernard attributed similar intentions to Cezanne in the passage of his 1907 memoir where he described the artist’s use of artificial flowers, arguing that “he was not interested in rendering the spirit of things, but their coloristic charm … particularly in still life.”[40] More appropriately perhaps, Gasquet cited Louis Le Bail, who worked with Cezanne in the later 1890s, to the same effect: “Le Baël [sic] told me how carefully he prepared the values of his still lifes, slipping, for example, tons one by one underneath peaches until the fruit appeared in the light, with the tons he was looking for. ‘The composition of color,’ he used to say, ‘the composition of color! … It’s all there. See in the Louvre, that’s how Veronese composes.’”[41]15
Fig. 8.13
Detail of Scenes of the Life of Christ and Virgin: Christ Washing the Apostles’ Feet, 1511. Woven tapestry on loom; 714 × 512 cm (281 1/8 × 201 9/16 in.). Cathedral of Saint-Sauveur, Aix-en-Provence. Photo: Paul Smith.
What Cezanne meant is illuminated by Maurice Denis’s recollection of his visit to Aix in 1906: “He talked a great deal about the contrasts in the Marriage at Cana; he drew up a diagram of them, which he found in the Bouquet by Delacroix (belonging to Choquet [sic]).”[42] This account links Cezanne’s color preferences to the scheme Paolo Veronese employed in his Marriage at Cana of 1562–53 in the Louvre (one of Cezanne’s favorite paintings) and to that Eugène Delacroix used in the watercolor flower piece of 1849 that Cezanne acquired through Vollard.[43] Cezanne’s diagram does not survive. But a clearer sense of the contrasts it described can be had from comparing the copy Cezanne made of Delacroix’s work (fig. 8.14) with a detail of Veronese’s painting (fig. 8.15). Both exhibit an unusual set of oppositions between blue tones and orange-yellow and yellow, alongside the opposition between blue and orange recommended by most contemporary theories of color based on pigment mixture.[44] There is also the more traditional contrast between red and green, although this is subdued in the Cezanne. It appears, in other words, that Cezanne did calculate the distribution of colors in his paintings much as Osthaus implied, drawing on the color scheme he discerned in Delacroix and Veronese. 16
Fig. 8.14
Paul Cezanne, after Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798–1863). Bouquet of Flowers After Delacroix, 1902–4 (FWN 882). Oil on canvas; 77 × 64 cm (30 5/16 × 25 3/16 in.). Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 3411.
Fig. 8.15
Paolo Caliari, called Veronese (Italian, 1528–1588). Detail of The Marriage at Cana, 1562–63. Oil on canvas; 677 × 994 cm (266 9/16 × 391 5/16 in.). Musée du Louvre, Paris, MR384.
There is some evidence in The Vase of Tulips to support this conclusion. Here, Cezanne deployed blue in the shadows alongside the orange and yellow of the fruit and the wildflowers, while the red of the tulips contrasts with the green of the olive jar and the foliage. An X-ray of the painting shows that Cezanne also made major changes to the arrangement of the oranges (see Technical Report) and, correspondingly, to the arrangement of color in the painting. Before Cezanne added the two oranges currently visible in the lower left corner, there were several oranges in the same area and to the right of them. The one in front of the vase was not completely overpainted, and touches of orange can still be seen in the tabletop (fig. 8.16). This arrangement is clearer in an X-ray (fig. 8.17). Similarly, an X-ray of Tulips in a Vase (fig. 8.18) shows that Cezanne overpainted two small oranges and one larger fruit behind the row of three fruits still visible immediately adjacent to the vase.
17
Figs. 8.16–8.18
Fig. 8.16
Detail of overpainted orange in Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.17
X-ray of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.18
X-ray of Tulips in a Vase (1889–90). Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena, California, M.1976.12.P.
The color orange presents a particular problem for the painter when it occurs alongside blue, as it does where the two oranges meet blue shadows in The Vase of Tulips. At least according to the only book on color Cezanne owned, Jean Desiré Régnier’s De la lumière et de la couleur chez les grands maîtres anciens of 1865, it is sometimes the case that “the eye cannot bear the brilliance” of complementary contrasts of this kind, particularly in a painting where “a pure orange [lies] next to a pure blue.”[45] The effect is just as “harsh on the eye,” Régnier adds, when “an object in relief” stands on a “plane surface” of the complementary color.[46] In such a situation, the “edges” of “an orange object in relief on a flat blue ground” will “contrast sharply and disagreeably” with that ground.[47]18
The care Cezanne took to adjust the edges of his oranges, especially the one on the left (fig. 8.19), by delicately inflecting them with blue and orange contours may be his attempt to remedy this defect. The same rationale explains why Cezanne mixed a warm, orangey tone into the blue shadow thrown by the orange on the right (fig. 8.20).[48] The technique, in any event, complies with Régnier’s suggestion that orange and blue can be made “bearable in a painting” if they are “broken” (or blended) into one another.[49] Régnier stipulated, in addition, that orange and blue become tolerable when they are “so well supported on all sides by analogous tones and shades” that they “appear to be part of a general or unique effect.”[50] And again, Cezanne’s use of a wide variety of colors in the area of the tabletop answers to this recommendation.19
Fig. 8.19
Detail of the contours of the orange at left in Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.20
Detail of warm-orange tone in blue shadow cast by the orange at right in Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Modeling, Modulation, Relationships, Harmony
The techniques Cezanne employed in The Vase of Tulips do appear to show that he was concerned with constructing a harmonious surface arrangement of color, just as Osthaus implied. They nonetheless demonstrate that he only did so by depicting effects that occurred in real depth. According to Régnier, for example, “an orange object in relief” creates a harmonious “broken” color in the “flat blue ground” it stands on by casting “reflections” into it.[51] Similarly, “the fundamental causes of constant harmony in nature” are the “halftones, shadows, reflections and luminous or colored rays” that light generates as it falls on objects in relief, just as it does in Cezanne.[52] Cezanne even placed a dab of yellow on the lit part of the orange on the right and a dab of red on the reflection it casts onto its neighbor (fig. 8.21) to capture how it takes and reflects the light.[53]20
Fig. 8.21
Detail of reddish reflection cast by the orange on the right onto the orange on the left, and the yellowish illuminated portion of the orange on the right, in Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Cezanne’s use of color more generally can only be understood if his struggle to achieve depth and modeling through color relationships is taken into account. This ambition is apparent from Le Bail’s account of Cezanne arranging a still life of a towel and peaches: “The napkin was draped over the table with innate taste, then Cézanne placed the peaches, contrasting the tons, making the complementary colors vibrate—greens with reds, yellows with blues… . You could tell that it was a feast for the eyes as far as he was concerned.” If Le Bail’s account ended there, it would confirm Osthaus’s opinion. Instead, it continued to describe how Cezanne explained his actions, stating, “Modeling is all that matters. We should not say model but modulate.”[54]21
How these remarks connect is best illuminated by three statements Cezanne made to Bernard. The first is his declaration in 1904 that “nature lies more in depth than on the surface.”[55] The second is the aphorism Bernard recorded during his visit to Aix in 1904: “To read nature is to see it through the veil of interpretation as colored patches following one another according to a law of harmony. These large hues are consequently analyzed through modulations.”[56] The third is another maxim: “Modeling results from the exact relationship between tons. When they are harmoniously juxtaposed, and they are all there, the painting models itself. We should not say model, we should say modulate.”[57] Taking these together, along with several other statements to the same effect, it is incontestable that Cezanne believed it was the painter’s task to capture the “modeling” nature presented through “modulations,” or variations in the color “relationships” that made up the “harmony” of the painting.[58] Or, as Cezanne explained to Larguier, “As you paint, you draw. The right tone gives both the light and the shape of the object. The more the color harmonizes, the more the drawing becomes clearer.”[59] What Osthaus called “the distribution of colors in the painting” thus went deeper in every sense than arranging them to look pretty, like flowers.22
Pairings
The Vase of Tulips and Tulips in a Vase constitute a “pair” of sorts in which the earlier painting is not so much a study for the other as simply its predecessor. And, indeed, Cezanne produced numerous “pairs,” and sometimes “trios,” of this kind, treating the same or a slightly altered motif.[60] This unusual habit is only one of several similarities between Cézanne’s practices and those advocated in a modest painting manual of 1854, La peinture à l’huile, by Julien de La Rochenoire.[61] This manual advised the painter not to scrape down the painting if he did “not succeed at the first attempt,” but to “take another canvas” instead and “start afresh by placing … tons boldly and vigorously, and modeling with them” until he achieved “complete success.”[62] If Cezanne did in fact follow this advice when he made The Vase of Tulips, then arguably only it—and not its predecessor (the Pasadena picture)—succeeded as Rochenoire described.
Paul Smith
23
Technical Summary
The canvas that Cezanne used for The Vase of Tulips was cut on the right side from a larger piece of primed canvas. The current dimensions correspond most closely to a no. 12 landscape (paysage) basse standard-size canvas. On the right tacking edge, there are painted forms that seem to be unrelated to the composition, suggesting that another painting may have been executed on the portion of the canvas that was cut away. Cezanne blocked in basic elements of the Tulips composition—the table, the vase, the fruit, and some of the flowers—using linear strokes of dilute ultramarine blue paint. He then built up the composition, without strictly following the painted underdrawing, using strokes of opaque, paste-consistency paint, working back and forth between the still-life objects and the surrounding surfaces. Cezanne painted the work over a period of time, reworking the arrangement of fruit in the lower left corner, which originally included three pieces of fruit lined up diagonally, just left and slightly in front of the vase, and a larger fruit in the space now occupied by the two oranges. He also made some late-stage modifications to the background wall to intensify the colors, working around and between the existing forms.24
Layered Image Viewer
Fig. 8.22
Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423. Interactive image. Use the icons at lower right and the slide bar to compare conservation images and overlays.
Signature
Not signed or dated.25
Structure and Technique
Support
Canvas: Linen (estimated).[63]26
Standard Format: The dimensions correspond most closely to a no. 12 landscape (paysage) basse standard-size canvas (43.2 × 61 cm).[64]27
Weave: Plain weave. Average thread count (standard deviation): 13.5V (0.7) × 11.5H (0.2) threads/cm. The horizontal threads were determined to correspond to the warp and the vertical threads to the weft.[65]28
Canvas characteristics: The canvas has an open weave. This is especially evident at the unprimed edges where the lining adhesive has been forced through the openings between the threads (fig. 8.23). There are a few nubs and variations in thread thickness throughout the canvas. The weft-thread angle map shows two overlaid cusping structures on the left edge. Very strong, widely spaced cusping at the top, middle, and bottom of the left edge could be primary cusping related to the priming of the canvas, or it could also be indicative of end-of-bolt weaving effects, suggesting that the painting support could have come from one end of the canvas bolt. The minor cusping along the left edge, as well as that on the top and bottom edges, is much weaker and is likely secondary cusping that occurred when the canvas was attached to the stretcher. There is no cusping along the right edge, indicating that a significant amount of canvas—at least 5 cm—was trimmed from the right edge after the canvas was primed.[66]
29
Fig. 8.23
Photomicrograph of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing the open weave of the canvas at the unprimed bottom edge. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Stretching
Current stretching: The current stretching dates to the undocumented aqueous lining (see Conservation History). Metal tacks spaced 2–4 cm apart. The tacking margins of the lining canvas have been trimmed and tacked to the stretcher separately from the original tacking edges.30
Original stretching: The cusping pattern indicates that the original tacks were spaced approximately 5–7 cm apart. There are no old, empty tack holes on the top, bottom, or left edges, suggesting that the original points of attachment were cut away from the edges of the canvas. There is a series of small pinholes along the right edge of the picture plane and, on the right tacking edge, a series of small, circular paint losses, which may be related to other tacking campaigns.31
Stretcher/Strainer
Current stretcher: The current stretcher may be original. Six-membered wooden stretcher with butt-ended mortise and tenon joints and twelve keys. Stretcher bar width: 5 cm; depth: 1.5 cm (fig. 8.24).32
Original stretcher: See above.
33
Fig. 8.24
Verso of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing the stretcher. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Manufacturer’s/supplier’s marks: None observed in current examination or documented in previous examinations.34
Preparatory Layers
Sizing: Not determined (probably glue).35
Ground application/texture: The canvas was primed after it was stretched but not on the current stretcher. The ground application stops short of the top, bottom, and left foldovers with raw canvas on the corresponding tacking edges. By contrast, the ground continues to the cut right edge of the canvas. Since there is no cusping on the right edge, it is not possible to know how much canvas was cut away, but thread-count analysis suggests a minimum of 5 cm (see Paint Layer for further discussion).36
Color: Off-white (fig. 8.25).
37
Fig. 8.25
Photomicrograph of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing the exposed ground at the right edge of the painting. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Materials/composition: Analysis indicates that the ground consists of two distinct layers. The lower layer contains predominantly calcium carbonate. The second layer consists primarily of lead white with traces of yellow and red iron oxide/earth pigments, barite, calcium compounds, silica, and probably a carbon-based black pigment.[67] Binder: Oil (estimated) (figs. 8.26–8.27).38
Figs. 8.26–8.27
Fig. 8.26
Photomicrograph of a cross section from Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing the double ground layer underneath a yellow paint layer. Original magnification: 200×. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.27
Backscattered electron image of a cross section from Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing the double ground layer underneath a yellow paint layer. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Compositional Planning/Underdrawing/Painted Sketch
Extent/character: No underdrawing in dry medium was detected with infrared reflectography or microscopic examination of the painting surface. Cezanne carried out some preliminary painted underdrawing, visible in areas of open brushwork among the flowers (fig. 8.28) and partially visible along some edges of the table, vase, and fruit, though these latter areas are largely concealed by opaque paint applications.
39
Fig. 8.28
Photomicrograph of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing the dilute ultramarine blue paint used to sketch in the red flower. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Medium/technique: Dilute ultramarine blue paint.40
Revisions: The painted underdrawing was roughly, but not precisely, followed in the painting stage. 41
Paint Layer
Application/technique and artist’s revision: Cezanne built up the composition from the painted underdrawing using strokes of thinly applied, opaque paint. Overall, the paint surface is fairly smooth and flat with slightly more textural brushwork used for some of the flower petals (fig. 8.29). Where the painted underdrawing, undertaken with ultramarine blue, is visible on the surface, Cezanne did not faithfully follow its contours but rather used it as a rough guide for the placement of forms. As he developed the composition, Cezanne worked back and forth between the still-life objects and the background surfaces. It seems that he painted the first layer of the background around the painted underdrawing, leaving areas in reserve for some of the flowers. In some places, most notably the tulips, the first paint applications are very thinly applied and sketchy, with a few strokes of more intense, opaque red paint applied on the surface that give some form to the flowers (fig. 8.30). As he painted in the leaves and flowers, Cezanne continued to build up the background between and around the flowers, adding some of the small yellow peripheral flowers on top of the background (fig. 8.31). He further built up areas of the background in the final stages, adding more intense greenish-blue brushwork around the forms already painted; see, for example, the area above the left side of the table where the background was reworked around the apple and the lower orange flower (fig. 8.32). Reinforced areas of the background are even more evident in the infrared false-color image, where brushstrokes executed with paint rich in emerald green and cobalt blue appear an intense blue,[68] those rich in ultramarine blue appear a deep red, and those where cobalt blue is prevalent appear pink (fig. 8.33). The macro X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (MA-XRF) copper and arsenic elemental maps also show how emerald green is concentrated around the flowers and leaves (fig. 8.34). More generally, emerald green and cobalt blue were distinctly used on the left and central portion of the background, while zinc white and ultramarine blue were used on the right. Therefore, Cezanne employed different pigment mixtures to achieve overall similar cyan hues for the background, a feature also noticeable in the infrared false-color image. Cezanne probably worked on the painting over multiple sessions, which may explain why visually similar hues were created using different pigment mixtures. Blue contour strokes (sometimes more purplish or brownish) applied near the edges of forms (the fruit, vase, and table) are often blended with adjacent paint or partially painted over as Cezanne focused on the interfaces of the objects—for example, the strokes of ultramarine blue, applied with a fine brush, which hover along the undulating upper edge of the horizontal leaf on the right (fig. 8.35).42
Figs. 8.29–8.35
Fig. 8.29
Photomicrograph of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing the brushwork in a flower petal. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.30
Detail of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing the paint application in the tulips. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.31
Photomicrograph of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing a flower painted on top of the background. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.32
Detail of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing where Cezanne reworked the background around the flower. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.33
Infrared false-color image of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890). The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.34
MA-XRF maps of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing the distribution of chemical elements present in the painting. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423. From top-left: arsenic (As_K), barium (Ba_L), calcium (Ca_K), cobalt (Co_K), chrome (Cr_K), copper (Cu_K), iron (Fe_K), mercury (Hg_L), lead (Pb_L), tin (Sn_L) and zinc (Zn_K).
Fig. 8.35
Photomicrograph of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing strokes of ultramarine blue applied, at different stages, along the upper contour of the leaf. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Technical imaging shows that Cezanne originally painted a different arrangement of fruit in the lower left corner (fig. 8.36). This included three pieces of similar-size fruit arranged on a diagonal: the front two may have been oranges, based on the bright-orange and red colors visible through gaps in the brushwork; the leftmost fruit was completely painted over (fig. 8.37). These fruits seem to have been built up to some degree, and in places, dark-blue contour strokes are visible at their edges. Cezanne painted the orange at the base of the vase in its entirety, perhaps indicating that the fruit was painted before the vase was included in the composition. To the left, in the area occupied by the two oranges in the final painting, Cezanne originally included a larger fruit.[69] Areas of the tabletop were initially painted in bright greenish-blue tones similar to the background wall; this is particularly noticeable at the front edge. The brighter underlayer seems to go just up to, and slightly overlap, the edge of the painted-out orange at the base of the vase, suggesting that it was part of the earlier composition. Variations in paint density within the vase indicate that Cezanne may have adjusted the position where the green glaze meets the exposed clay. He also appears to have narrowed the lower left contour of the vase (fig. 8.38).43
Fig. 8.36
X-ray, natural-light, and infrared-reflectogram (Goodrich, 0.9–1.7 μm) details of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing fruit that Cezanne painted out of the composition. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.37
Photomicrograph of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing the bright-orange and red paint from a piece of fruit that Cezanne painted out of the composition. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.38
X-ray and natural-light details of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing adjustments Cezanne made to the vase. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Parts of the composition, including the edge of the table leg and portions of the light-blue background, are wrapped around onto the lower section of the right tacking edge. This indicates that the work was painted on a different (larger) stretcher, or possibly with the canvas pinned to a flat surface (fig. 8.39). By contrast, along the upper third of the right foldover, there is a narrow strip of exposed ground between the background wall of the composition and a band of blue paint on the right tacking edge, which comprises a slightly different paint mixture than the blue background of the Vase of Tulips and seems to be related to another painting carried out on the adjacent part of the canvas that was cut away (fig. 8.40). On the lower third of the tacking edge, above and beyond the edge of the table leg, there are remnants of three curved forms, possibly fruit, two yellow and one brownish orange, that have been cut through (fig. 8.41). These observations raise the possibility that Cezanne used a larger piece of canvas to carry out two subsequent paintings or executed two paintings side by side on a wider canvas and then cut the paintings apart and stretched them separately. Near the upper right foldover, where the ground layer is exposed between the two painting campaigns, there is a dark-blue line (or multiple lines) directly on top of the ground that can be traced from the top edge to around the tip of the horizontal leaf (fig. 8.42); below this, the paint from the Vase of Tulips composition extends onto the tacking edge, covering the ground. No evidence of a painted blue line was found on the other edges, suggesting that it may have indicated the boundary between the two compositions, or the planned dimensions of the Tulips composition once the right portion of canvas had been cut away.
44
Figs. 8.39–8.42
Fig. 8.39
Right edge of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing that part of the composition was folded over onto the tacking edge. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.40
Detail from the right edge of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing a strip of exposed ground at the right foldover and blue paint possibly from another painting at the cut edge of the canvas. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Fig. 8.41
Detail from the right edge of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing painted forms unrelated to The Vase of Tulips composition. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.42
Fig. 8.42
Photomicrograph of Cezanne’s The Vase of Tulips (c. 1890) showing the painted blue lines at the edge of the composition. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1933.423.
Painting tools: Brushes, including flat ferrule and fine, pointed-tip brushes for flower stems and other linear elements.45
Palette: Analysis indicates the presence of the following pigments: bone black, lead white, probably zinc white, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, Prussian blue, emerald green,[70] viridian, green earth, yellow ochre, chrome yellow, vermillion, red iron oxide/earth pigments, raw sienna, crimson lake (possibly carmine lake), and red lead.[71] Samples taken from the painting on the right tacking edge and analyzed by SEM/EDX include many of the same pigments found in The Vase of Tulips: lead white, zinc white, ultramarine blue, emerald green, viridian, yellow ochre, vermillion, probable red lake, and umber.[72]46
Binding media: Oil (estimated).[73]47
Surface Finish
Varnish layer/media: The painting is currently unvarnished (see Conservation History). 48
Conservation History
The painting was lined with an aqueous adhesive in an undocumented treatment carried out before the Art Institute of Chicago acquired the work.49
In 1959 Louis Pomerantz removed surface grime from the varnished paint surface using a wax emulsion.[74]50
In 1965 Alfred Jakstas removed a moderately yellowed, soft resin varnish. He inpainted losses and applied a spray coating of methacrylate resin L46, followed by a final spray coat of polyvinyl acetate AYAA.[75]51
In 2021 Allison Langley removed the synthetic varnish layers and left the painting unvarnished. Light abrasion along the edges was inpainted.[76]52
Condition Summary
Overall, the painting is in very good condition. The canvas is lined with an aqueous adhesive and stretched taut and in plane on an early, if not original, keyable wooden stretcher. The ground and paint layers extend to the cut edge of the right tacking margin; the other tacking margins are unprimed, indicating that the canvas was cut on the right side. A series of small pinholes along the right edge of the picture plane may be related to the execution of the painting or an early pinning of the canvas. There are a few localized areas of loss and abrasion, mainly around the edges of the painting, as well as a couple of tiny areas of interlayer cleavage between paint layers, all of which appear stable. There is a network of mechanical cracks, as well as localized drying, impact, and stretcher-bar cracks. These are all very fine and, for the most part, are only visible under magnification. Tiny, dark splatters, concentrated in the upper left corner, appear to have etched into the paint surface in some places. There are localized spots of retouching in areas of small losses and abrasion, mainly near the edges as well as over the pinholes along the right edge and on some of the splatters in the upper left corner. There are remnants of paper edge strips on the tacking edges.
Kim Muir with Giovanni Veri
53
Undated
Label:
Location: backing board
Method: printed label
Content: THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO / ARTIST: Paul Cezanne / TITLE: The Vase of Tulips (1890/92) / MEDIUM: Oil on canvas / CREDIT: M/M Lewis Larned Coburn Mem. Coll. / ACC.#: 1933.423 (fig. 8.43)90
Fig. 8.43
Label, cat. 8.
Label:
Location: backing board
Method: printed label with typewritten script
Content: THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO / artist Paul Cezanne / title The Vase of Tulips / medium Cat # 2 / credit Crate # 9 / acc. # 1933.423 (fig. 8.44)
91
Fig. 8.44
Label, cat. 8.
Number:
Location: stretcher (over brown paper)
Method: handwritten script
Content: 33 (fig. 8.45)
92
Fig. 8.45
Number, cat. 8.
Number:
Location: stretcher (over brown paper)
Method: handwritten script
Content: 185 (fig. 8.46)
93
Fig. 8.46
Number, cat. 8.
Number:
Location: lining canvas
Method: handwritten script
Content: 33.423 (fig. 8.47)
94
Fig. 8.47
Number, cat. 8.
Number:
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten script
Content: 33.423 (fig. 8.48)
95
Fig. 8.48
Number, cat. 8.
Number:
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten script
Content: D R 5339 (fig. 8.49)
96
Fig. 8.49
Number, cat. 8.
Number:
Location: stretcher (over brown paper)
Method: handwritten script
Content: [illegible] (fig. 8.50)
97
Fig. 8.50
Number, cat. 8.
Inscription:
Location: stretcher (over brown paper)
Method: handwritten script
Content: art Inst (fig. 8.51)
98
Fig. 8.51
Inscription, cat. 8.
Label:
Location: frame
Method: printed label
Content: Arnold Wiggins & Sons / Limited / 4 Bury Street / St James’s / London SW1 / Picture Frame Makers / Carvers and Gilders / [crest] BY APPOINTMENT / TO H. M. QUEEN ELIZABETH II / PICTURE FRAME MAKERS / [crest] BY APPOINTMENT / TO H. M. QUEEN ELIZABETH / THE QUEEN MOTHER / PICTURE FRAME MAKERS (fig. 8.52)
99
Fig. 8.52
Label, cat. 8.
Label:
Location: frame
Method: printed label with handwritten script
Content: Arnold Wiggins & Sons / Treated for woodworm / Method: Thermo Lignum / Date: 29.2.08 (fig. 8.53)
100
Fig. 8.53
Label, cat. 8.
Pre-1980
Label:
Location: stretcher
Method: printed label with handwritten script and green-ink inventory stamp
Content: THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO / CHICAGO ILLINOIS 60603, U.S.A. / To Cezanne, Paul / The Vase of Tulips / 1933.423
Stamp: Inventory – 1980 - 1981 (fig. 8.54)
101
Fig. 8.54
Label, cat. 8.
Label:
Location: previous Masonite backing (discarded), transcription in object file
Method: not documented
Content: Cezanne Exhibition / The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. / Feb. 27–Mar. 28, 1971 / The Art Institute of Chicago / April 17–May 16, 1971 / Museum of Fine Arts, Boston / June 1–30, 1971 / Cat. No. 19 Box no. 15102
Label:
Location: previous Masonite backing (discarded), transcription in object file
Method: not documented
Content: Le Musee National d’Art Occidental / Tokyo, Japan / Exposition Cezanne 1974 / cat. no. 45 / cas. no. ?103
Label:
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten script on printed label
Content: Cézanne No. 8154 / Fleurs et / fruits 1880 / m[a3?] (fig. 8.55)
104
Fig. 8.55
Label, cat. 8.
Number:
Location: stretcher (over brown paper)
Method: handwritten script
Content: 1941 (fig. 8.56)
105
Fig. 8.56
Number, cat. 8.
Number:
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten script
Content: Ph 1982 (fig. 8.57)
106
Fig. 8.57
Number, cat. 8.
Number:
Location: stretcher (over brown paper)
Method: handwritten script
Content: 2[6?] (fig. 8.58)
107
Fig. 8.58
Number, cat. 8.
Number:
Location: stretcher (over brown paper)
Method: handwritten script
Content: […?] # 2 (fig. 8.59)
108
Fig. 8.59
Number, cat. 8.
Label/stamp:
Location: stretcher
Method: ink stamp on circular, scallop-edged label
Content: DOUANE / PARIS / CENTRAL (fig. 8.60)
109
Fig. 8.60
Label/stamp, cat. 8.
Label/stamp:
Location: stretcher
Method: ink stamp on circular, scallop-edged label
Content: DOUANE / PARIS / CENTRAL (fig. 8.61)
110
Fig. 8.61
Label/stamp, cat. 8.
Label:
Location: stretcher
Method: handwritten script
Content: 5339 – Cézan[ne] / Fleurs et frui[ts] (fig. 8.62)
111
Fig. 8.62
Label, cat. 8.
Label:
Location: stretcher
Method: printed label with typewritten script
Content: PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ART / Fairmount, Philadelphia / ARTIST Paul Cézanne / TITLE Flowers and Fruit / INSURANCE VALUE / SALES VALUE / LENDER The Art Institute of Chicago / ADDRESS OF LENDER Chicago, Illinois / Penn. Mus. Form (fig. 8.63)
112
Fig. 8.63
Label, cat. 8.
Post-1980
Stamp:
Location: stretcher
Method: green-ink inventory stamp
Content: Inventory – 1980 - 1981 (fig. 8.64)
113
Fig. 8.64
Stamp, cat. 8.
Label:
Location: backing board
Method: printed label with sticker
Content: [logo] JAPAN / YAMATO TRANSPORT CO.,LTD. / FINE ARTS DIVISION / EXHIBT. JAPAN 94’ [Japanese characters] / vNO. 9 / CATAL. NO. / [sticker:] 15 (fig. 8.65)
114
Fig. 8.65
Label, cat. 8.
- See Richard Brettell and Stephen S. Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum (Norton Simon Museum, 2006), 1:311, for the contrary “speculation” that this “refined” table must have belonged to “Cézanne’s wife’s rather nice apartment along the quai d’Anjou on the Île-St.-Louis” because it was “decidedly different from the simply made pine and deal tables that are common in Cézanne still lifes.”
- Cezanne’s table is probably a nineteenth-century copy of a Louis XV type. These sometimes had marble tops, which could account for the color difference, although in most paintings the front edge appears to be wood-colored.
- For these, see Walter Feilchenfeldt, Jayne Warman, and David Nash, eds., The Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings of Paul Cezanne: An Online Catalogue Raisonné, accessed June 1, 2025, http://www.cezannecatalogue.com, nos. 539, 824, 866, 1778, 1876 (perhaps), 3018-34b (hereafter FWN). See Brettell and Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art, 1:311, 312n2, which identifies (in addition to The Vase of Tulips) FWN 824, 825, and 866 as paintings “associated with Paris.” The table with straight legs but no scalloped apron in FWN 825 is different from the one in The Vase of Tulips. So is the table in FWN 886 with straight legs and a scalloped apron that Brettell and Eisenman describe as “cruder.” On this last table, see Michel Fraisset, Les vies silencieuses de Cézanne (Office du Tourisme, Aix-en-Provence, 1999), n.p.
- For a detailed analysis, see Robert William Ratcliffe, “Cézanne’s Working Methods and Their Theoretical Background” (PhD diss., Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1960), 55–56, 400n136. This band is not to be confused with the narrow red border immediately above the painted maroon skirting in the Lauves studio, which was added between 1970 and 1972 by Marianne Bourges; Michel Fraisset, email message to author, Apr. 22, 2024. Nor is it the same as the chair rail in Cezanne’s quai d’Anjou apartment. See also cat. 7.
- The others are FWN 507, 523, and 526.
- Paul Alexis to Émile Zola, Feb. 13, 1891, in Paul Cézanne: Correspondance, ed. John Rewald (Grasset, 1978), 235: “Les journées, il peint au Jas de Bouffan, on un ouvrier lui sert de modèle.” The model for this painting was probably Paulin Paulet, gardener at the Jas. See Ratcliffe, “Cézanne’s Working Methods,” 430–31n154, which summarizes Ratcliffe’s interview with Paulet’s daughter. See also cat. 9.
- Gasquet Joachim, “Juillet,” Les mois dorés, July 1896, 94–96.
- M[arthe] C[onil], “Quelques souvenirs sur Paul Cézanne par une de ses nièces,” Gazette de beaux-arts, 6e période, 56, no. 1102 (Nov. 1960): 300.
- See John Rewald, The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné (Harry N. Abrams, 1996), 1:408, no. 618.
- See Brettell and Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art, 1:312.
- See Brettell and Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art, 1:312. See also Rewald, The Paintings, 1:450, no. 721.
- FWN 737, 738. For this location, see cat. 2.
- On the painting’s origins in the Jas, see Ratcliffe, “Cézanne’s Working Methods,” 401n136, 430–31n154. Cezanne arbitrarily introduced a green olive jar standing on a shelf into the background of this work, which is absent from the Card Players in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection (FWN 680).
- See Pierre Gassendi, The Mirrour of True Nobility and Gentility: Being the Life of the Renowned Nicolaus Claudius Fabricus, Lord of Peiresk, Senator of the Parliament at Aixi, trans. W. Rand (London, 1657), 147–48, which states that Peiresc obtained the bulbs from Jerome de Winghe in Tournai.
- Karl Ernst Osthaus, “Cézanne,” Feuer: Monatsschrift für Kunst und künstlerische Kultur 2, no. 1 (Oct. 1920): 85: “Als wir abends durch die Felder schlendcrten, glühten tausend rote Tulpen in der jungen grünen Saat.”
- See Emmanuel Briard, “Notes sur quelques tulipes de la flore de France,” Feuille des jeunes naturalistes, no. 129 (July 1, 1881): 121.
- Briard, “Notes sur quelques tulipes,” 122.
- The watercolor FWN 1953 shows flowers in a vase but cannot be considered a preparatory study for either painting, although its drooping foliage resembles that of Tulips in a Vase.
- As noted in Rewald, The Paintings, 1:450.
- As noted in Rewald, The Paintings, 1:450. I am indebted to Elena Theodorakopoulos for identifying these flowers.
- See Ambroise Vollard, Paul Cézanne (Vollard, 1914), 61–62, 101–2. Of paper flowers, Cezanne remarked, “Ces sacrées bougresses, elles changent de ton à la longue!” Cezanne quoted in Vollard, Paul Cézanne, 102. See also Émile Bernard, “Souvenirs sur Paul Cézanne et lettres inédites,” Mercure de France 70, nos. 247 and 248 (Oct. 1 and 16, 1907): 626; Joachim Gasquet, Cézanne (Bernheim-Jeune, 1921), 19; and Gustave Geffroy, Claude Monet: Sa vie, son temps, son œuvre (G. Crès, 1922), 197.
- Cezanne to Vollard, Jan. 23, 1902, and Jan. 9, 1903, in Cezanne, Correspondance, 278, 292. See also Vollard, Paul Cézanne, 149: “Le Bouquet de Fleurs dont il parle dans ses lettres, et auquel il travailla de 1900 à 1903: il est vrai de dire que le modèle était en papier.” See also Léo Larguier, Le dimanche avec Paul Cézanne (L’Édition, 1925), 107. This painting is FWN 881.
- On Cezanne and Dr. Gachet, see cat. 1.
- Paul Gachet, Deux amis des impressionistes: Le Docteur Gachet et Murer (Musées Nationaux, 1956), 56: ‘‘Il est certain qu’à Auvers Cezanne n’eut jamais recours aux fleurs artificielles dont parle Vollard. Les fleurs peintes chez le Docteur constituent des œuvres audacieuses,d’une technique solide, complète et—chose extraordinaire—presque enlevées du coup. Après le Bouquet de Dahlias (au grand Delft) aujourd’hui au Louvre (Collection Camondo), Gachet suggère—pour compenser les lenteurs du métier de Cezanne—de prendre des toiles de plus petit format, d’où les trois Bouquets (au petit Delft).” Only three paintings of flowers in a delft vase by Cezanne survive. They are (in order of diminishing size) FWN 721 (73 × 54 cm), FWN 720 (52 × 39 cm), and FWN 719 (41 × 27 cm).
- On “réalisation,” see cat. 13.
- Bernard, “Souvenirs,” 614: “Il me recommenda de commencer légèrement et avec des tons presques neutres. Ensuite il fallait aller en montant toujours la gamme et en serrant davantage les chromatismes.” Tons here does not mean shades of black and white, as “tones” does in most English painters’ usage, but different hues of different luminosities, embracing, for Cezanne, both aspects of color. See also cat. 1.
- For the claim that the artist painted “fruits artificiels,” see John Rewald, Cézanne et Zola (Sedrowski, 1936), 147; and John Rewald, “Iconographie de Cézanne,” L’amour de l’art 17, no. 5 (May 1936): 185. The Australian painter Jeffrey Smart recalled seeing original “wax fruit and paper flowers” in Cezanne’s Lauves studio in 1949, but he also speaks of meeting Cezanne’s illegitimate “daughter” there. See Jeffrey Smart, “In Cézanne’s Studio,” Voices: The Quarterly Journal of the National Library of Australia 5, no. 1 (Mar. 1995): 32, 34.
- Gasquet, Cézanne, 122: “Les fleurs, j’y ai renoncé. Elles se fanent tout de suite. Les fruits sont plus fidèles. Ils aiment qu’on fasse leur portrait.Ils sont là comme à vous demander pardon de se décolorer.”
- Bernard, “Souvenirs,” 626: “des fruits verts.”
- R. P. Rivière and Jacques Schnerb, “L’atelier de Cézanne,” La grande revue, no. 24 (Dec. 25, 1907): 814.
- Ambroise Vollard, Paul Cézanne (Ambroise Vollard, 1914), 75: “quelques pommes achevaient de pourrir.” See also 101–2: “Il fut amené à peindre de préférence des pommes.”
- Larguier, Le dimanche, 107–8: “Dans tous les coins, des fruits secs ou gâtés, ceux dont il se servait pour ses natures mortes… . Il venait d’achever une petite toile: des pommes et un de ces pots dans lesquels on met des olives, en Provence … Il ôta la poterie de dessus la table, puis, sortant un couteau de sa poche, il partagea une des deux pommes et m’en offrit la moitié. Elle était rouge et luisante, et elle n’était pas très bonne.”
- Jean-Pierre Papon, Histoire générale de la Provence, dédié aux états (Paris, 1777), 1:163; and Simon-Jude Honnorat, Dictionnaire provençal-français ou dictionnaire de la langue d’oc, ancienne et modern, suivi d’un vocabulaire français-provençal (Digne, 1846–48), 2:933.
- See Honnorat, Dictionnaire, 933; and Guillon, Essai d’un traité de l’agriculture provençale (P. Gimbert, 1863–64), 3:12.
- Hypolite Topin, “Notice statistique sur les serres et les orangeries du territoire de Marseille, précédé d’un aperçu sur l’introduction de l’oranger dans le midi de France,” Répertoire des travaux de statistique de Marseille 12 (1848): 66.
- Topin, “Notice statistique,” 65, 69. On Cezanne and Saint-Henri, see cat. 5. On Cezanne and l’Etang de Berre, see Georges Rivière, Le maître Paul Cézanne (Floury, 1923), 42; and Gasquet, Cezanne, 1921, 9.
- Alphone du Breuil, Cours élémentaire théorique et pratique d’arboriculture (Paris, 1850), 619–20; and Raphaël de Noter, Les orangers, citronniers, cédratiers, et autres aurantiacées à fruits comestibles: Leur culture dans la région méditeranéenne et dans le nord (Paris, 1896), 64–65, 68–69, 71–72, 83–84.
- Paul Max, “Les oranges,” Les soirées littéraires, no. 78 (Apr. 24, 1881), 208.
- Osthaus, “Cézanne,” 83–84: “Ihre Farben waren nicht auf Distanz gestimmt; im Gegenteil, sie schienen so ganz in die Fläche verwoben, daß man den Raum, den sie schmückten, als wohlig umschlossen empfand… . Was begründete diese Verwandtschaft? Gab es etwas in ihnen, das, dem Meister vielleicht unbewußt, über das impressionistische Schauen der Tiefe hinausging? Die neueste Entwicklung der Malerei hat uns darüber belehrt. Mehr als den Raumwert schaßt sie die Verteilung der Farben im Bilde, das Bukett, das des Meisters Hand aus Tönen wie aus Blumen zu winden verstand.”
- Bernard, “Souvenirs,” 626: “Il ne s’attachait pas à rendre l’esprit des choses, mais leur charme coloriste … surtout … dans la nature morte.”
- Gasquet, Cézanne, 48: “Le Baël: m’a raconté avec quels soins il préparait les valeurs de ses natures mortes, glissant par exemple, sous des pêches des tons un à un jusqu’à ce que les fruits se présentent dans la lumière, avec les tons, qu’il cherchait. ‘La composition de la couleur, disait-il, la composition de la couleur! … Tout est là. Voyez au Louvre, c’est ainsi que Véronèse compose.’”
- Maurice Denis, Journal, vol. 2, 1905–1920 (La Colombe, 1957), 29: “Il parle beaucoup des contrastes qu’il y a dans les Noces de Cana; il en a fait un schéma: il le retrouve dans le Bouquet de Delacroix (de Choquet [sic]).”
- On Cezanne’s admiration for Veronese’s painting, see Bernard, “Souvenirs,” 378; and Gasquet, Cézanne, 99, 101. On Cezanne’s admiration for the Delacroix, see Vollard, Paul Cézanne, 104.
- See, for instance, Michel-Eugène Chevreul, De la loi du contrante simultané ses couleurs (Paris, 1839), 1:5; and Charles Blanc, Grammaire des arts du dessin (Paris, 1867), 597.
- Jean Desiré Régnier, De la lumière et de la couleur chez les grands maîtres anciens (Paris, 1865), 18: “L’œil ne peut en supporter l’éclat,” “l’orangé à côté du bleu.” See also 33. On Cezanne’s copy of Régnier, see Ratcliffe, “Cézanne’s Working Methods,” 330–31.
- Régnier, De la lumière, 32: “dur à l’œil,” “un objet en relief,” “surface plane.”
- Régnier, De la lumière, 32: “les bords,” “un objet orangé en relief sur un fond plane bleu,” “trancheront durement sur le bleu.”
- On Cezanne’s strong sensitivity to reflections, see Bernard, “Souvenirs,” 394; Gasquet, Cézanne, 187; and Gustave Coquiot, Paul Cézanne (Ollendorff, 1919), 122, 127.
- Régnier, De la lumière, 33: “supportables dans un tableau,” “rompues.”
- Régnier, De la lumière, 33: “si bien soutenues de tous côtés par des tons et des nuances analogues,” “paraissent seulement faire partie d’un effet général ou unique.”
- Régnier, De la lumière, 32: “un objet orangé en relief,” “rompu,” “fond plane bleu,” “réflexions.” On the same principle, see also 32, 35, 71.
- Régnier, De la lumière, 31: “les causes fondamentales d’harmonie constante dans la nature,” “demi-teintes, ombres, réflexions et rayonnements lumineux ou colorés.”
- Régnier, De la lumière, 107: “La lumière des orangés, c’est de l’orangé plus jaune, et les réflexions de l’orangé sur lu—même produisent de l’orangé plus rouge.”
- Le Bail quoted in John Rewald, Cézanne: Sa vie, son œuvre, son amitié pour Zola (Albin Michel, 1939), 403: “La serviette a été drapée à peine sur la table, avec un goût inné, puis Cézanne a placé les pêches, en opposant les tonsles uns aux autres, faisant vibrer les complémentaires, les verts aux rouges, les jaunes aux bleus, penchant, inclinant, équilibrant les fruits comme il voulait que ce soit, se servant pour cela de pièces d’un sou et de deux sous. Il y apportait un très grand soin et beaucoup de précautions, on devinait que c’était pour lui un régal de l’œil. Puis il expliqua à son jeune confrère: ‘Le modelé, il n’y a que cela, on ne devrait pas dire modler mais moduler.’”
- Cezanne to Bernard, Apr. 15, 1904, in Cezanne, Correspondance, 300: “La nature est plus en profondeur qu’en surface.”
- Cezanne quoted in Émile Bernard, “Paul Cézanne,” L’Occident, no. 32 (July 1904): 23: “Lire la nature, c’est la voir sous le voile de l’interprétation par taches colorées se succédant selon une loi d’harmonie. Ces grandes teintes s’analysent ainsi par les modulations.”
- Cezanne quoted in Bernard, “Paul Cézanne,” 23–24: “Il n’y a pas de ligne, il n’y a pas de modelé, il n’y a que des contrastes. Ces contrastes, ce ne sont pas le noir et le blanc qui les donnent, c’est la sensation colorée. Du rapport exact des tons résulte le modelé. Quand ils sont harmonieusement juxtaposés et qu’ils y sont tous, le tableau se modèle tout seul. On ne devrait pas dire modeler, on devrait dire moduler.”
- See also Bernard, “Paul Cézanne,” 24; Bernard, “Souvenirs,” 396; Rivière and Schnerb, “L’atelier,” 814–15; and Denis, Journal, 250.
- Larguier, Le dimanche, 136: “Au fur et à mesure que l’on peint, l’on dessine. La justesse du ton donne à la fois la lumière et le modelé de l’objet. Plus la couleur s’harmonise, plus le dessin va se précisant.”
- Among the more closely related groups are FWN 490 and 492; 770 and 771; 780, 781, and 782; 807 and 808; 833 and 834; 843 and 844; and 855 and 856.
- For a discussion of Cezanne’s putative debt to Rochenoire, see Paul Smith, “Vermilion, or Why Cézanne Took the Shine off Things,” Word and Image 26, no. 1 (Apr. 2020): 70–72.
- Julien de La Rochenoire, La peinture à l’huile apprise seul avec sept couleurs pour un franc, deuxième partie (Paris, 1854), 36.
- The canvas fibers were not analyzed.
- See, for example, the chart of standard sizes available from Lefranc et Cie in 1889, reproduced in Anthea Callen, The Art of Impressionism: Painting Technique and the Making of Modernity (Yale University Press, 2000), 15, fig. 24.
- Thread count and weave information were determined by Thread Count Automation Project software. See Don H. Johnson, “Thread Count Report: Paul Cézanne, The Vase of Tulips (1933.423),” Jan. 2020, /files/a59a24c7-1bde-45ad-adae-74d24564b5c3/Cez_1933-423_Tulips_tcr_FWN826.pdf.
- See Johnson, “Thread Count Report: Paul Cézanne, The Vase of Tulips (1933.423).”
- The ground composition was analyzed using scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX). For more detailed results and conditions used, see Kim Muir, “1933-423_Cezanne_Tulips_ARP_SEM_202302,” Feb. 10, 2023, on file in the department of Conservation and Science, Art Institute of Chicago.
- Though the techniques used to analyze the pigments cannot discriminate between the two types of copper-arsenate pigments available in the nineteenth century—emerald green and Scheele’s green—the former is more likely, since the use of Scheele’s green is rare and emerald green has been confirmed in Cezanne’s paintings at other institutions. See Francesca Rosi et al., “A Non-Invasive XRF Study Supported by Multivariate Statistical Analysis and Reflectance FTIR to Assess the Composition of Modern Painting Materials,” Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 71, no. 5 (2009): 1655–62, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.saa.2008.06.011; and Anya Shutova and Barbara Buckley, “Materials and Techniques: A Study of Cézanne’s Paintings in the Barnes Foundation,” in Cézanne in the Barnes Foundation, ed. André Dombrowski, Nancy Ireson, and Sylvie Patry (Rizzoli Electa, 2021), 31–57. However, recent investigations have further highlighted the complexities related to the identification of copper-arsenic compounds. See Leonardo Pantoja Munoz, “Hidden in Plain Sight: Revisiting the Synthesis, Characterisation, Degradation and the Intricate Relationship Between Scheele’s Green and Emerald Green,” Heritage Science 12, no. 94 (2024): https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-024-01192-7.
- Both of these arrangements—the earlier painted-over fruit and the final composition—differ from the placement of the fruit in the related painting Tulips in a Vase (see fig. 8.1).
- See note 68 above.
- The presence of the pigments was inferred using the following methods: bone black (PLM), lead white (PLM, SEM/EDX, XRF, MA-XRF), zinc white (SEM/EDX, XRF, MA-XRF), ultramarine blue (SEM/EDX, XRF, HSI), cobalt blue (XRF, MA-XRF, HSI), Prussian blue (PLM), emerald green (SEM/EDX, XRF, MA-XRF, HSI), viridian (XRF, MA-XRF, HSI), green earth (PLM), yellow ochre (XRF, MA-XRF, HSI), chrome yellow (XRF, MA-XRF), vermillion (XRF, MA-XRF, HSI), red iron oxide/earth pigments (XRF, MA-XRF, HSI), raw sienna (PLM), crimson lake (possibly carmine lake) (PLM), and red lead (PLM) Brown paint was found to contain the element tin (XRF, MA-XRF), likely corresponding to the use of a red organic colorant. The presence of tin and chlorine in several spectra collected from red pigment particles indicates the use of a red lake pigment, stannous chloride likely having been used in the manufacturing process (XRF, MA-XRF). Traces of opaque brown and purple particles were also observed (PLM). Traces of calcium carbonate (PLM) and a barium-based painting material, possibly barium sulfate (SEM/EDX, XRF, MA-XRF), were also used, likely as extenders. Analysis was carried out on selected areas and may not include all pigments present in the painting. See Giovanni Verri, “1933-423_Cezanne_Tulips_ARP_MA-XRF-XRF-HSI_202510”; Muir, “1933-423_Cezanne_Tulips_ARP_SEM_202302”; and Marigene Butler, memo, May 11, 1971, on file in the department of Conservation and Science, Art Institute of Chicago.
- See Muir, “1933-423_Cezanne_Tulips_ARP_SEM_202302.”
- The binding medium was not analyzed. The estimation of an oil medium is based on visual examination, as well as on knowledge of Cezanne’s technique and published analyses of Cezanne’s paintings in other collections. See, for example, Charlotte Hale, “A Template for Experimentation: Cézanne’s Process and the Paintings of Hortense Fiquet,” in Dita Amory et al., Madame Cézanne, exh. cat. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014), 55; and Elisabeth Reissner, “Ways of Making: Practice and Innovation in Cézanne’s Paintings in the National Gallery,” National Gallery Technical Bulletin 29 (2008): 10.
- Louis Pomerantz, treatment notes, Sept. 15, 1959, on file in the department of Conservation and Science, Art Institute of Chicago.
- Alfred Jakstas, treatment record, Aug. 13, 1965, on file in the department of Conservation and Science, Art Institute of Chicago.
- Allison Langley, treatment report, July 15, 2021, on file in the department of Conservation and Science, Art Institute of Chicago.
- For more on Chocquet, see cat. 2.
- See annotated sale catalogue, the Art Institute of Chicago and Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot, July 4, 1899.
- Durand-Ruel stock no. 8154: Cézanne, Fleurs et Fruits 1880, based on label on reverse and information on Registrar Archival Card [DR labels on verso of painting included DR 5339; photo 1982]. See Labels and Inscriptions.
- See FWN 826.
Entry by Paul Smith; Technical Report by Kim Muir with Giovanni Verri, “Cat. 8 The Vase of Tulips, c. 1890,” in Cezanne Paintings and Watercolors at the Art Institute of Chicago, ed. Gloria Groom and Kim Muir (Art Institute of Chicago, 2026), https://doi.org/10.53269/9780865593251/13. © 2026 by The Art Institute of Chicago. This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
