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Cat. 1 Auvers, Panoramic View, 1873–75 Cat. 2 The Plate of Apples, c. 1877 Cat. 3 Standing Bather, Seen from the Back, 1879–82 Cat. 4 The Bay of Marseille, Seen from L'Estaque, c. 1885 Cat. 5 Montagne Sainte-Victoire, c. 1885 Cat. 6 Road in Provence, c. 1885 Cat. 7 Madame Cezanne in a Yellow Chair, 1888–90 Cat. 8 The Vase of Tulips, c. 1890 Cat. 9 A Study for the Card Players, 1890–92 Cat. 10 The Basket of Apples, c. 1893 Cat. 11 The Bathers, 1899–1904 Cat. 12 Pistachio Tree at Château Noir, c. 1900 Cat. 13 The Three Skulls, 1902–6 Cat. 14 Man Wearing a Straw Hat, 1905–6

From left to right, a seated adult in a gray-blue coat and brown-gray hat sits on a light yellow chair. The body faces right with both forearms resting on a light gray table, and the right hand holds a few small rectangular pieces fanned outward. The figure is the largest element, filling the left half of the scene, while the pale beige background is mostly empty and the table extends into the lower right corner.
Cat. 9

A Study for the Card Players
1890–92
Watercolor with graphite on beige wove paper; 36.2 × 48.5 cm (14 5/16 × 19 1/8 in.)
The Art Institute of Chicago, anonymous loan, 475.1983
FWN 1760

Captured in profile, a mustached man wearing a hat and work clothes sits, bending slightly forward over a table. This simple piece of furniture is made of light-colored wood and has a drawer in its side. The man fixes his gaze on cards he holds in his left hand; his right hand lies flat on the table next to the held cards as though he has just played the card lying on the tabletop. Cezanne worked first with a pencil, bringing the drawing to such a state of completion that it could have remained as it was. As in the view of the Arc River Valley in Montagne Sainte-Victoire (cat. 5), the watercolor paints he added in a second step serve primarily as elaboration and make the work a “colored drawing.”[1] Especially in the area of the jacket’s sleeves and lapel, the artist “drew” with his brush, adhering to the contours and folds previously defined by the pencil. At the same time, he developed a balanced color composition, which in its original state—before the pigments faded and the paper yellowed—would have been more forceful (see Technical Summary in the Technical Report). 1

The shiny traces to the right of the man’s face and left arm, on the other hand, would have been no more visible than they are today. Set off slightly from the depiction proper, they were traced onto the paper by the artist’s fingernail when he held the pencil in an overhand grip.[2] These “invisible lines,” discernible only in raking light, are evident chiefly in those figural depictions in which he intensively focused on individual contours. This situation would apply to A Study for the Card Players, which is part of a series that deeply preoccupied him.[3] He worked on the so-called Joueurs de cartes (Card Players) in a farmhouse on his father’s property, the Jas de Bouffan in Aix-en-Provence, from late 1890 to 1896.[4] The core group comprises eighteen works: nine paintings and nine works on paper.[5] In addition, there are several closely related depictions of individual farm laborers.[6]2

All the works on paper and four of the paintings are studies devoted to a single seated card player, often without any indication of the surrounding environment. The five remaining paintings depict multiple figures in more developed settings. Within the latter category are two further subgroups: Two of the works—one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and one in the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia—are traditionally dated to around 1890 to 1892 (figs. 9.1–9.2).[7] They depict three card players at the light-colored table with a drawer, an observer standing and smoking in front of a wall on which hangs a pipe rack holding four pipes, and a sumptuous curtain on the right-hand side. The version in Philadelphia is more than twice as large as that in New York and includes another observer, a girl, as well as a shelf with an olive pot on it (both cut through by the edges of the painting) and a painting or mirror on the wall.[8] In the three remaining paintings—dated to about 1892 to 1896 and belonging to the Musée d’Orsay in Paris (FWN 684), a private collection in Qatar (FWN 685), and the Courtauld Gallery in London (FWN 686)—Cezanne confined himself to just two card players, one of whom has a pipe in his mouth. They sit opposite one another at a dark, cloth-covered wooden table with a wine bottle between them.[9] Paneling of the kind in the farmhouse in the Jas dominates the background, the conspicuous horizontal of its upper edge forming a fundamental structural element of the composition.[10] As Barnaby Wright has pointed out, the setting “might be thought to evoke a café interior or one of its back rooms of the sort where peasants commonly played cards in Aix as elsewhere.”[11]3

Top center, a standing adult in a dark blue jacket with a red scarf is set against a mottled blue-green wall, with three tan-brown pipes hanging to the right and a gold-yellow curtain on the far right. In front, three adults sit around a light blue-gray rectangular table: left wears a brown coat and brown hat on a wooden chair, center wears a tan jacket with a dark vest and black hat, and right wears a deep blue, cape-like coat and black hat. On the tabletop, small playing cards, a white pipe, and a small box are near their hands; the table has a shallow drawer, and the seated figures are larger than the standing figure, indicating they are closer.

Fig. 9.1


Paul Cezanne (French, 1839–1906). The Card Players, 1890–92 (FWN 680). Oil on canvas; 65.4 × 81.9 cm (25 3/4 × 32 1/2 in.). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Stephen C. Clark, 1960, 61.101.1.

Top-left, a small wall shelf holds a green vase; moving right, a framed rectangle hangs on a gray wall above three white pipes, with a large gold-brown curtain draped along the far right. In the foreground, a light gray table with one drawer sits center, surrounded by four adults in brown and blue coats and dark hats, while another adult stands behind the left side with arms crossed. The center adult holds playing cards; on the tabletop are cards, a pipe, and small rectangular items. A youth in dark clothing is partly visible behind the right-side seated adult.

Fig. 9.2


Paul Cezanne. The Card Players, 1890–92 (FWN 681). Oil on canvas; 135.3 × 181.9 cm (53 1/4 × 71 5/8 cm). Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, BF 564.

Three of the four preparatory paintings and five of the nine works on paper bear a close relationship to the works in the first of these two subgroups.[12] The watercolor in Chicago depicts the player sitting at the left end of the table and, with regard to the placement of his hands and the direction the cards are facing, bears a somewhat closer resemblance to his counterpart in the painting in Philadelphia than that in New York. The man is quite likely the same as the one depicted in a pencil drawing in the collection of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York (fig. 9.3), which, like an oil study in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay (fig. 9.4), shows him in profile from the other side, sitting at the right end of the table.[13]4

Top center-right, an adult sits in profile facing left, wearing a brimmed hat and a long coat, with the upper body leaning toward a table. On the left, both hands hold small rectangular items just above the table edge; below, faint lines show the lower body and the table base. A chair back is behind the person on the right, and the figure occupies most of the right half of the scene. Colors are shades of gray.

Fig. 9.3


Paul Cezanne. The Card Player, c. 1892–96 (FWN 1764). Graphite on wove paper; 55.2 × 43 cm (21 3/4 × 17 1/8 in.). The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, Thaw Collection, 1975.39.

Top left shows a pale yellow wall with patches of light blue. Centered, an adult sits facing left, wearing a brown hat and a long brown coat, leaning toward a light blue table; hands at the left rest above the tabletop with small light rectangular shapes between the fingers. On the right, a vertical green-blue band and a chair back are visible; the figure fills most of the space, and the table occupies the lower left corner.

Fig. 9.4


Paul Cezanne. The Card Player, 1890–92 (FWN 682). Oil on canvas; 50 × 46 cm (19 11/16 × 18 1/8 in.). Musée d’Orsay, Paris, Gift of Heinz Berggruen, RF 1997 54.

Unique among the Card Players, this change of perspective suggests that this figure in particular was Cezanne’s point of departure for the group. Numerous perforations in the works on paper in Chicago and at the Morgan reinforce this speculation. They offer evidence that the artist repeatedly tacked the sheets to a board or studio wall, where they presumably served as references for the oil versions. Technical examinations of the paintings—undertaken by Aviva Burnstock, Charlotte Hale, Caroline Campbell, and Gabrielle Macaro in preparation for an exhibition on the Card Players at the Courtauld Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art—confirm the fundamental significance of the related works on paper for the overall working process: “The drawings appear to have been used extensively in the production of the paintings, since those parts of the painted compositions for which drawings exist reveal little evidence of reworking… . Using his preliminary studies as points of reference, he had the confidence to paint the composition directly on to the canvas sometimes with little or no underdrawing in a dry medium.”[14] And the few pencil lines that do appear on the canvases in turn correspond closely to the studies on paper. In the New York painting, for example, the linework on the forehead and jacket sleeves of the card player seated at the left echo those in Chicago’s drawing in several places.[15]5

The nearly identical dimensions of the drawing in the Morgan and the painting in the Musée d’Orsay provide further evidence of a relationship between the paintings and the works on paper. The work in Chicago, on the other hand—on a sheet two-thirds the size of Cezanne’s preferred standard French Raisin format (48 × 63 cm)[16]—is considerably smaller than the related paintings in New York and Philadelphia. For this watercolor, Cezanne left the rightmost quarter of the surface blank. In the other studies in which the table appears and is likewise shown only partially, the depiction fills the surface or is at least centered on it.[17] The Chicago version thus all the more insistently prompts the viewer to complete the composition in their mind by adding a second figure seated opposite the first.[18] The studies therefore provided elements that Cezanne could draw on and assemble in any combination he liked.6

Furthermore, the fact that not one of the studies (whether on canvas or paper) unites several figures indicates that the men posed for him individually.[19] In the case of the work in Chicago, the sitter was Paulin Paulet, a gardener employed at the Jas. Those who posed for the other studies were farm laborers whom Cezanne paid five francs for a sitting; the girl in the Philadelphia work is Paulet’s daughter Léontine.[20] Nancy Ireson and André Dombrowski have emphasized that he would have been keenly interested in the everyday life of the farm laborers he recruited as models: “Arguably, Cézanne’s real topic is the hard-earned stillness of his sitters, away from their usual work and at a remove from a rapidly changing world.”[21] In terms of content, however, the sitters’ identities are of secondary importance; after all, these works are not portraits but rather depictions of figural types.[22]7

The Card Players are considered Cezanne’s only genre depictions.[23] They were already viewed as such during his lifetime and continue to spark keen interest in this regard today. On the one hand, they are regarded as “his most referential canvases, displaying deep consciousness of the history of art and of French, Dutch, and Italian seventeenth-century genre paintings in particular.”[24] Theodore Reff undertook the first investigation of possible inspirations in a study that remains seminal. Reff proposed that one point of reference, of particular resonance for the Chicago watercolor, was a painting by Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin (fig. 9.5) that Cezanne would have had the opportunity to study during one of his regular visits to the Musée du Louvre.[25] On the other hand, the visual culture of Cezanne’s day and works by fellow artists such as Gustave Caillebotte and Jean-François Raffaëlli served as sources of inspiration for the Card Players, as Reff also discussed.[26]
8

Left to right: on a green-topped wooden table, a small row of upright playing cards with red and black patterns stands near the edge. Center-right, an adult sits in profile facing left, with mid-length brown hair tied back with a dark blue ribbon, wearing a brown long-sleeved garment and a dark blue-gray scarf; hands with light skin tone hold several white cards. On the tabletop are loose cards and two round tokens, and at the bottom an open drawer contains additional cards, including one showing a red figure; the background is a plain gray-brown wall.

Fig. 9.5


Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin (French, 1699–1779). House of Cards (Le château de cartes), c. 1836. Oil on canvas; 77 × 68 cm (30 1/4 × 26 3/4 in.). Musée du Louvre, Paris, MI 1032.

The work in Chicago initially belonged to Cezanne’s first dealer, Ambroise Vollard, who reproduced it in his 1914 monograph.[27] Its accessibility led to its inclusion in early scholarly discussions around the Card Players, although it was not always mentioned explicitly, and when it was, it was primarily in terms of its relationship to the paintings. Considered in and of itself, the watercolor in Chicago epitomizes the group as a whole; after all, it is the only study to capture the moment when a card is played.[28] It thus infuses the card players’ seeming inertia—which results in a monumentality frequently compared to that of Cezanne’s views of Montagne Sainte-Victoire—with a “heightened sense of animation and narrative.”[29]

Fabienne Ruppen
9

Technical Summary

This watercolor, A Study for the Card Players, served as a figure study for two oil paintings (see figs. 9.1–9.2). It is one of several drawings and oil studies that Cezanne made in preparation for his paintings depicting card players. Here he sketched the model, a gardener from the Jas de Bouffan,[30] posed in the studio, to determine the figure’s posture and placement, as well as the colors he would use for the final oils.[31] The artist referred to this watercolor closely when executing both paintings, enlarging the figure seen here onto their canvas supports. 10

Cezanne began by drawing with a graphite pencil. In a reflected-infrared image, most of the watercolor washes disappear or appear semitransparent, revealing the graphite lines beneath (fig. 9.6). Using light to medium pressure, he sketched the figure, table, and chair, establishing forms and modeling the figure. He tilted the pencil tip on its side to shade with broad lines, applied in quick back-and-forth gestures, marking areas of shadow along the back of the hat and the jacket, on the legs beneath the table, and within the jacket folds in the proper left sleeve, as seen in an infrared detail (fig. 9.7). With full contours and extensive shading, Cezanne recorded the man’s substantial physical presence in the drawing phase. He brought this drawing to a level of completion atypical of his preliminary sketches for watercolor. This reflects his close observation of the model as he prepared the figure for painting in oil. Importantly, the full drawing, revealed for the first time in the infrared image, allows for consideration of the watercolor’s relationship to other preparatory works for the Card Player paintings and their sequence. The relationship between the drawing revealed in the reflected-infrared image and the watercolor surface can be explored with in the layered image viewer (fig. 9.9).11

From left to right, a seated adult wearing a hat and a coat sits in a chair, turned toward a rectangular table. At the center, the left forearm rests on the tabletop while the right hand holds a few small papers; the table’s edge and a vertical support are visible below. Gray lines on a white background define the scene, with the figure occupying the left half and the table extending into open space on the right.

Fig. 9.6


Reflected-infrared (Sinar rePro, 0.9–1.05 μm) image of Cezanne’s A Study for the Card Players (1890–92) showing Cezanne’s preliminary graphite drawing. The Art Institute of Chicago, 475.1983.

Two side-by-side images show a person in a long, draped garment, seen from the head and shoulders down to the lower torso, with the figure angled diagonally toward the lower right. Left image: soft blue-gray shading on a light tan background outlines the head, shoulder, and sweeping fabric folds that widen at the middle and taper downward. Right image: pale gray lines on a light gray background depict the same pose with faint facial details and prominent vertical and diagonal folds, and the figure occupies most of the frame in both images.

Fig. 9.7


Normal-light and reflected-infrared (Sinar rePro, 0.9–1.05 μm) details of the proper right arm in Cezanne’s A Study for the Card Players (1890–92). The Art Institute of Chicago, 475.1983.

The artist applied his watercolor washes sparingly following his graphite drawing. Using a thin brush, he outlined the forms with cobalt and indigo blues, then applied broader strokes of indigo over graphite shading to convey shadows as in the proper left sleeve (see fig. 9.7). Touches of vermillion suggest the reddish brown of the man’s coat and his ruddy complexion, underscoring his identity as a rural laborer. Yellow ochre signals the warm tone of the wooden chair, while a single horizontal stroke of cerulean blue along the edge of the table indicates its color. All colors correspond to hues observed in both oil versions, indicating that Cezanne followed this study faithfully. Due to the fugitivity of the watercolor pigments, combined with the darkening of the paper support from bright cream to beige, the watercolor washes now appear less bright and vibrant than they did initially.12

Close examination of a detail of the face illustrates the nuances of Cezanne’s methods and the sophisticated interplay between wash, line, and the plain paper (fig. 9.8). When Cezanne applied his watercolor washes, he allowed the graphite shading to remain visible through the transparent color, as seen in the hat and the collar. There are very few areas where graphite functions alone, without wash; these include the proper left fingers and the proper right sleeve. In the nose and the front of the hat, he left the pencil uncovered to indicate contour through graphite line alone. Across the face and the hat, he layered small strokes of reds and blues, allowing each to dry before overlaying the next to prevent mixing or muddying the colors. Colored washes create shadows against the light of the plain paper to generate a convincingly modeled head. Using a narrow brush and deep indigo blue, Cezanne added short, intermittent lines to clarify and emphasize edges at the chin, jawline, ear, eyebrows, and parts of the hat brim. These marks add contrast and articulation. Their hovering placement—not touching the actual contour, as seen just below the chin—serves to introduce rhythm and causes the eye to move around the composition. Cezanne also applied warm touches of red to enliven the cool shadows. He repeated the distinctive patch of red on the chin in both related oil paintings. 
13

Top center shows a light gray hat with a medium brim, tilted slightly to the left. Moving downward, an adult figure is angled left; the head area sits beneath the hat and the upper body fills the lower half. The person wears a gray-blue coat with a broad collar, with the left shoulder appearing larger and closer than the right, against a uniform beige background.

Fig. 9.8


Detail of head in Cezanne’s A Study for the Card Players (1890–92). The Art Institute of Chicago, 475.1983.

Cezanne’s paper plays a major role in this study. Positioning the figure, table, and chair on the left side of the sheet, Cezanne left a void of reserved paper at right, convincingly suggesting another player at the table. The white of the paper functions visually as light reflected from the figure and works together with line and wash to convey the card player’s mass and volume. There are pinholes at all corners and at the center of each edge, and in some places two or more, suggesting Cezanne tacked the sheet to a board while executing this work and then pinned the sheet to the wall for reference while painting the two related oils. He likely repositioned the drawing over multiple working sessions (for the sketch or as a reference for the oils, or both), resulting in multiple tack holes.[32]14

Layered Image Viewer

cez 475 1983 IR NRM regOVR FINAL 0001 Background
Natural light
cez 475 1983 IR NRM regOVR FINAL 0000 IR Img (0.9–1.05 µm)
Reflected infrared (0.9–1.05µm)

Fig. 9.9

Cezanne’s A Study for the Card Players (1890–92). The Art Institute of Chicago, 475.1983. Interactive image. Use the icons at lower right and the slide bar to compare conservation images and overlays.

Signature

None.15

Media and Support

Media: Cezanne sketched with a medium-hard, medium-black graphite pencil similar to today’s standard No. 2 pencils.[33]16

Cezanne likely employed eight different watercolor pigments in this work. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) revealed the presence of cobalt blue, cerulean blue, vermillion, yellow ochre, and emerald green.[34] No inorganic elements were detected in the yellow wash, indicating it is an organic colorant. The shiny, resinous appearance under the microscope suggests it is the yellow gum-resin gamboge. The presence of indigo and a red lake pigment was also suggested by visual examination and the absence of any detected inorganic elements. Additionally, Cezanne mixed purple on the palette, likely from indigo and a red lake pigment.[35] Several of these pigments correspond with those identified in four watercolor palettes owned by the artist.[36] Color shifts that have occurred with aging (see Condition Summary) prompted one scholar to mistakenly describe Cezanne’s palette in this work as being “fairly limited, in its range of earth tones and greys,” when in fact the pigments in the palette were originally quite vibrant.[37]17

Support: Cezanne chose a slightly textured, moderately thick cream wove paper for this study (now discolored to beige).[38] The sheet has no watermark. Microscope examination shows the furnish is completely uniform, with no inclusions. Transmitted light reveals a consistent, mottled pattern of fiber distribution with a distinct fiber orientation in the vertical direction from formation on the moving screen of a paper-making machine. The sheet is typical of the watercolor papers Cezanne used for decades. It provided him with a predictable surface texture and absorbency as well as a bright background for his watercolor washes. 18

The sheet has been trimmed. The top, left, and bottom edges are straight-cut, and the edges are not square. Paint extends over the lower edge, indicating the lower sheet edge has remained intact since the work was painted. The largest outer dimensions of 36.2 × 48.5 cm suggest that Cezanne cut down a standard-size Raisin sheet measuring 63 × 48 cm.[39] XRF analysis detected lead in the paper, suggesting the fibers or furnish had contact with lead-containing materials during manufacture.[40]
19

Compositional Development

Cezanne first sketched the figure, table, and chair in graphite pencil to establish contours and interior shading, as seen in the infrared image (see fig. 9.6). He made one modification to the proper left arm, raising it slightly from its initial position closer to the body. The outer edge and interior shading of the sleeve in the first iteration are still visible, drawn and shaded in broad lines using light pressure and recording the faint paper texture. As was typical of the artist, Cezanne did not use an eraser and simply abandoned this initial drawing.[41] Using the pencil tip and firmer pressure, he raised the arm slightly, establishing the final, undulating contours of the cloth jacket definitively in darker, more precise lines. This adjustment allowed the hand to rest more naturally on the table. Two details of this area in normal and infrared light show the change (see fig. 9.7). In both oil paintings of this subject (see figs. 9.1–9.2), Cezanne adjusted the arm again, moving the proper left hand holding the cards closer to the man’s body, underscoring his particular interest in this aspect of the figure’s pose. 20

Conservation History

In 2021 treatment was carried out to reduce surface soil and paper discoloration, reduce adhesive residues from the verso, fill a loss from the lower left corner, and clean, realign, repair and visually reintegrate a 4 cm tear from the center of the top edge (fig. 9.10). The sheet was humidified and flattened overall to reduce undulations.[42]
21

Across a large, light beige surface, the area appears mostly blank with faint patches and scattered tiny dark specks. Near the top center, a short pale vertical strip is visible, and small red markings appear in the top left and top right corners. From left to right along the edges, the borders show slight unevenness and occasional small dots, while the center remains open and uniform.

Fig. 9.10


Verso of Cezanne’s A Study for the Card Players (1890–92). The Art Institute of Chicago, 475.1983.

Condition Summary

There is a 1 cm band of darkening along the recto edges, likely from contact with an acidic frame rebate or liner. A loss to the lower left corner is filled with toned paper. The media appears in relatively good condition, although the colors in this work appear less vibrant than they initially did due to the fugitivity of the watercolor pigments, combined with the darkening of the paper support. The colored washes would have appeared brighter and more vibrant against the original, whiter tone of the paper.[43]22

Kristi Dahm
23

Ambroise Vollard (1866–1939), Paris.[44]24

Jacques Seligmann, Paris and New York (inv. 1593).[45]25

Mr. and Mrs. Chauncey McCormick (Chauncey McCormick [1884–1954] and Marion Deering McCormick [1886–1965]), Chicago, Jan. 1934.[46]26

Private collection.[47]27

On loan to the Art Institute of Chicago.[48]
28

New York, Jacques Seligmann Gallery, Watercolors by Cézanne, Nov. 16–Dec. 7, 1933, cat. 6. 29

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Museum of Art, Cézanne, Nov. 10–Dec. 10, 1934, cat. 47, as 1890. 30

Art Institute of Chicago, Cézanne: Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings; A Loan Exhibition, Feb. 7–Mar. 16, 1952, cat. 78 (ill.), as Card Player; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Apr. 4–May 18, 1952.31

Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Cézanne, Sept. 25, 1995–Jan. 7, 1996, cat. 133 (color ill.), as Joueur de cartes; London, Tate Gallery, Feb. 8–Apr. 28, 1996, cat. 133 (color ill.), as Cardplayer; Philadelphia Museum of Art, May 30–Sept. 1, 1996.32

London, Courtauld Gallery, Cézanne’s Card Players, Oct. 21, 2010–Jan. 16, 2011, cat. 6 (color ill.), as c. 1890–92.33

Art Institute of Chicago, Cezanne, May 15–Sept. 5, 2022, cat. 114 (color ill.); London, Tate Modern, Oct. 6, 2022–Mar. 12, 2023 (Chicago only). 34

Ambroise Vollard, Paul Cézanne (Ambroise Vollard, 1914), 46 (ill.), 178. 35

Lionello Venturi, Cézanne: Son art, son œuvre, 2 vols. (Éditions Paul Rosenberg, 1936), 1:275, no. 1085; 2: pl. 315, no. 1085 (ill.). 36

Lionello Venturi, Paul Cézanne: Water Colours (Bruno Cassirer, 1943), 19, 20, 49, no. 10, fig. 10.37

Daniel Catton Rich, “Catalogue and Illustrations,” in Daniel Catton Rich and Theodore Rousseau Jr., Cézanne: Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings; A Loan Exhibition, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1952), 70, 71, cat. 78 (ill.).38

Meyer Schapiro, Paul Cézanne (Harry N. Abrams, 1952), 16 (ill.). 39

Werner Hofmann, Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) (Kurt Desch, 1953), pl. 32, as Studie zu den Kartenspielern.40

Maurice Raynal, Cézanne, trans. Karl Georg Hemmerich (Skira, 1954), 89 (color ill.), 132. 41

Lionello Venturi, Cézanne, trans. R. Skira (Éditions d’Art Albert Skira, 1978), 118, 119 (ill.), 164.42

Theodore Reff, “Cézanne’s ‘Cardplayers’ and Their Sources,” 43

Arts Magazine 55, no. 3 (Nov. 1980): 111, fig. 12. 44

John Rewald, Paul Cézanne: The Watercolours; A Catalogue Raisonné (Little, Brown; Thames and Hudson, 1983), 175–76, no. 377 (ill.).45

Richard Kendall, ed., Cézanne by Himself: Drawings, Paintings, Writings (Macdonald, 1988), 176 (ill.), 315. 46

Joseph J. Rishel, “The Cardplayers,” in Françoise Cachin et al., Cézanne, exh. cat. (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1996), 334–35, 337–38, cat 133 (color ill.).47

Mary Tompkins Lewis, Cézanne (Phaidon, 2000), 264, 266, fig. 166. 48

Nancy Ireson and Barnaby Wright, Cézanne’s Card Players, exh. cat. (Courtauld Gallery; Paul Holberton, 2010), 34 (color detail), 41, 43, 108 (color ill.), 109, cat. 6.49

Christopher Lloyd, Paul Cézanne: Drawings and Watercolours (Thames and Hudson, 2015), 124, fig. 73. 50

Achim Borchardt-Hume et al., ed., Cezanne, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 2022), 182 (color ill.), cat. 114.51

Walter Feilchenfeldt, Jayne Warman, and David Nash, eds., The Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings of Paul Cezanne: An Online Catalogue Raisonné, accessed June 1, 2025, https://www.cezannecatalogue.com/catalogue/entry.php?id=1358, no. 1760 (color ill.).52

Inscriptions and Distinguishing Marks

Verso

Upper right corner, in red pencil: PH / 116[?] (116 encircled) (fig. 9.11)[49] 53

A pale beige surface fills the scene. Near the upper-right area, a thin red curved outline contains three short red horizontal dashes. Just below and slightly left, the red characters “X + E” appear diagonally, with a small white spot nearby. All markings are small compared to the overall surface.

Fig. 9.11


Inscription, cat. 9.

Upper left corner, in red pencil: PH (fig. 9.12)
54

A light tan surface fills the frame. Near the upper left are two small dark dots. Slightly right of center are two short red markings—one diagonal line and one shaped like a block “H”—both small relative to the overall area, with wide empty tan space around them.

Fig. 9.12


Inscription, cat. 9.

Entry by

Notes

  1. Laure-Caroline Semmer also described this depiction as “a graphite drawing with colour highlights.” Laure-Caroline Semmer, “A Study for the Card Players,” in Cézanne’s Card Players, ed. Nancy Ireson and Barnaby Wright, exh. cat. (Courtauld Gallery; Paul Holberton, 2010), 109. For a work showing Cezanne’s typical pencil-watercolor dialogue instead, see, for example, cat. 6. 
  2. On this overhand grip and the imprint of Cezanne’s fingernail resulting from it, see Annegret Seger, “Die Zeichnungen von Paul Cézanne im Kunstmuseum Basel: Spurensuche und Rekonstruktion seiner Skizzenbücher,” VDR Beiträge zur Erhaltung von Kunst- und Kulturgut, no. 2 (2021): 63; 62, fig. 10.
  3. On the term “series” in connection with the Card Players, see Joseph J. Rishel, “The Cardplayers,” in Françoise Cachin et al., Cézanne, exh. cat. (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1996), 338.
  4. The earliest possible date can be assumed to be November 1890, when Cezanne was back in Aix-en-Provence after a stay in Switzerland. See André Dombrowski and Nancy Ireson, “The Card Players,” in Cézanne in the Barnes Foundation, ed. André Dombrowski, Nancy Ireson, and Sylvie Patry (Rizzoli Electa; Barnes Foundation, 2021), 238. On the location, see Nancy Ireson and Barnaby Wright, “Cézanne’s Card Players: An Introduction,” in Ireson and Wright, Cézanne’s Card Players, 20.
  5. For the paintings, 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. 678–86 (hereafter FWN). For the works on paper, see FWN 1760–67, 3002-43b.
  6. For these related works, see the plates in Ireson and Wright, Cézanne’s Card Players, for example, cats. 3, 18–24.
  7. For a detailed discussion of the sequence and dating of the overall series, see Dombrowski and Ireson, “The Card Players,” 239; and Ireson and Wright, “An Introduction,” 17–18. See also the technical examinations, which made it possible to disprove the previously proposed sequence of the larger painting in Philadelphia predating the smaller one in New York. Aviva Burnstock et al., “Cézanne’s Development of the Card Players,” in Ireson and Wright, Cézanne’s Card Players, 35–37.
  8. The olive pot was one of Cezanne’s standard props; in the Vase of Tulips (cat. 8), for example, it served as a flower vase. See also the two flower still lifes FWN 789, 790.
  9. For a wine bottle of this kind, see also cat. 10.
  10. On the setting, see Ireson and Wright, “An Introduction,” 20.
  11. Barnaby Wright, “The Card Players,” in Ireson and Wright, Cézanne’s Card Players, 118.
  12. The paintings are FWN 678, 679, 682; the works on paper are FWN 1760, 1761, 1764, 1765, 3002-43b.
  13. This change of position and the longer jacket have occasionally prompted discussion as to whether these two works might instead be more closely linked to the group of works that depict two card players. The white sleeves and hat type, along with the light shade of the table, however, correspond to those in the multifigural depictions. On this aspect, see Semmer, “The Card Player,” 106; and Burnstock et al., “Cézanne’s Development,” 45.
  14. Burnstock et al., “Cézanne’s Development,” 37, 43.
  15. Burnstock et al., “Cézanne’s Development,” 42–43, and figs. 17, 19.
  16. See Support in the Technical Report. The top, left, and bottom edges are straight. As paint has run over the bottom edge, this edge must have been trimmed before painting, if at all. The width (48.5 cm) corresponds to that of a Raisin format. On Cezanne’s paper formats, see cat. 6.
  17. See FWN 682, 1761, 1763–65.
  18. On this aspect, see also Technical Summary in the Technical Report. Much the same also applies to two head studies for the group of works with two figures, which Cezanne likewise carried out in the upper sections of the sheets, leaving the lower sections virtually blank. See FWN 1762, 1766.
  19. Burnstock et al., “Cézanne’s Development,” 39, also assumed this, as did Ireson and Wright, “An Introduction,” 19.
  20. For these identifications, see Ireson and Wright, “An Introduction,” 16–17, citing a statement by Léontine Paulet made to Robert Ratcliffe; see Robert William Ratcliffe, “Cézanne’s Working Methods and Their Theoretical Background” (PhD diss., Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1960), 19–20. Léontine Paulet also provided the information on the wages; see Ireson and Wright, “An Introduction,” 16. Burnstock et al., “Cézanne’s Development,” 39, explains more precisely that the girl received only three francs.
  21. Dombrowski and Ireson, “The Card Players,” 245; see also 242–43.
  22. On this aspect, see the apt observation by Lionello Venturi, Cézanne, trans. R. Skira (Éditions d’Art Albert Skira, 1978), 118: “Les paysans, ici, sont individualisés comme s’il s’agissait de portraits mais aussi ils surgissent, universels comme des idées, solennels comme des monuments, solides comme une conscience morale.”
  23. Dombrowski and Ireson, “The Card Players,” 240.
  24. Dombrowski and Ireson, “The Card Players,” 241. For a summary of the works’ reception, see Dombrowski and Ireson, “The Card Players,” esp. 237; Ireson and Wright, Cézanne’s Card Players; and John House, “Cézanne’s Card Players: Art Without Anecdote,” in Ireson and Wright, Cézanne’s Card Players, 55–71.
  25. Theodore Reff, “Cézanne’s ‘Cardplayers’ and Their Sources,” Arts Magazine  55, no. 3 (Nov. 1980): 110–11. Chardin’s painting came to the Louvre in 1869 as part of the La Caze collection. Contemporary critics had already recognized parallels between works by Cezanne and Chardin. See Dombrowski and Ireson, “The Card Players,” 241.
  26. See Reff, “Cézanne’s ‘Cardplayers.’” For Caillebotte, see The Bezique Game (1880; Louvre Abu Dhabi); for Raffaëlli, The Cardplayers (from Les types de Paris), 1889. As Reff (p. 113) points out, Les types de Paris were first published in installments in Le Figaro between February and April 1889 and then in book form; Cezanne therefore likely knew the Raffaëlli drawing. On popular imagery, from printmaking to cinema, see also Dombrowski and Ireson, “The Card Players,” 242, 244–45.
  27. Ambroise Vollard, Paul Cézanne (Ambroise Vollard, 1914), 46. The “PH / 116” noted on the verso refers to the “photographie” taken for this purpose; see fig. 9.12. A similar notation appears on Man Wearing a Straw Hat (cat. 14). Two photographs of the Card Player drawing in the Vollard albums are numbered “196”; this suggests that a second annotation on the verso of the drawing, now partly covered by tape, reads “PH [/ 196].” See “196 – Joueur de cartes, 1890–92, Ambroise Vollard Records [VLD49-46],” Wildenstein Plattner Institute, https://digitalprojects.wpi.art/archive/collections/detail?id=124373-196-joueur-de-cartes&media=11953767; and “196 – Joueur de cartes, 1890–92; Ambroise Vollard Records [VLD32-10],” Wildenstein Plattner Institute, https://digitalprojects.wpi.art/archive/collections/detail?id=123594-196-joueur-de-cartes.
  28. There is only one other study—a painting in the Worcester Art Museum (1890–92; FWN 679) carried out in preparation for the man seated at the center—in which both hands, complete with cards, and a card just played are visible. The greater physical distance between the card and the man’s hands, however, suggests that more time has passed since the card was played.
  29. Dombrowski and Ireson, “The Card Players,” 245 (in reference to the left-hand figure in the paintings in New York and Philadelphia).
  30. See curatorial essay, which identifies the sitter as Paulin Paulet.
  31. Burnstock et al., “Cézanne’s Development,” 135–53. A Study for the Card Players was omitted from this essay’s discussion of the chronological development of the other drawings and oil studies related to Cezanne’s five final Card Player compositions. For discussion of the use of peasant models, who posed in his studio for these studies, see Ireson and Wright, “An Introduction,” 16–18.
  32. For a discussion of tack holes in related drawings, see the curatorial essay.
  33. Marjorie Shelley, “Cézanne as Draftsman: Sketchbooks and Graphite Drawings,” in Dita Amory et al., Madame Cézanne, exh. cat. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014), 118.
  34. Analysis was carried out on selected areas and may not include all pigments present in the painting. See Clara Granzotto and Maria Kokkori, “475-1983_Cezanne_ARP_XRF,” Oct. 9, 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 Faith Zieske, “An Investigation of Paul Cézanne’s Watercolors with Emphasis on Emerald Green,” Book and Paper Annual 14 (1995): 105–15. 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, Characterization, 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.
  35. For comparison of Cezanne’s watercolor pigments in works in other collections, see Faith Zieske, “Paul Cézanne’s Watercolors: His Choice of Pigments and Papers,” in The Broad Spectrum, ed. Harriet Stratis and Brit Salvesen (Archetype, 2002), 89–101; Elizabeth Reissner, “Transparency of Means: ‘Drawing’ and Colour in Cézanne’s Watercolours and Oil Paintings in the Courtauld Gallery,” in The Courtauld Cézannes, ed. Stephanie Buck et al., exh. cat. (Courtauld Gallery; Paul Holberton, 2008), 49–71; and Laura Neufeld, “Belle Formule: Materials and Methods in Cézanne Watercolors,” in Cézanne Drawing, ed. Jodi Hauptman and Samantha Frieman, exh. cat. (Museum of Modern Art, 2021), 203–4.
  36. Maria Kokkori, “Cezanne’s Materials,” app. 2 in Cezanne, ed. Achim Borchardt-Hume et al., exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 2022), 228–29.
  37. Semmer, “A Study for the Card Players,” 109.
  38. For standards for texture and thickness, see Print Council of America, The Print Council of America Paper Sample Book: A Practical Guide to the Description of Paper (Print Council of America, 1996).
  39. See cat. 6.
  40. See Granzotto and Kokkori, “475-1983_Cezanne_ARP_XRF.” The paper used for The Three Skulls (cat. 13) contains trace amounts of lead. Other Cezanne watercolor papers in the Art Institute of Chicago do not contain lead.
  41. Shelley, “Cézanne as Draftsman,” 118–19.
  42. Mary Broadway, conservation treatment report, May 5, 2021, on file in the department of Prints and Drawings, Art Institute of Chicago.
  43. Zieske, “Paul Cézanne’s Watercolors,” 98–99.
  44. John Rewald, Paul Cézanne: The Watercolours; A Catalogue Raisonné (Little, Brown; Thames and Hudson, 1983), 176, no. 377 (tentatively); Françoise Cachin et al., Cézanne, exh. cat. (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1996), cat. 133 (tentatively); and FWN 1760.
  45. Lionello Venturi, Cézanne: Son art, son œuvre (Éditions Paul Rosenberg, 1936), 1:275, no. 1085; Lionello Venturi, Paul Cézanne: Water Colours (Bruno Cassirer, 1943), 49, no. 10; Rewald, The Watercolours, 176, no. 377; and FWN 1760. I am grateful to Jayne Warman for pointing out the Seligmann inventory number as well as the fact that the Seligmann Archive includes correspondence between the gallery and Alice Roullier, who effectuated the sale.
  46. Pennsylvania Museum of Art, Cézanne, exh. cat. (Pennsylvania Museum of Art, 1934), cat. 47; Venturi, Cézanne: Son art, son œuvre, 1:275, no. 1085; Venturi, Paul Cézanne, 49, no. 10; Daniel Catton Rich and Theodore Rousseau Jr., Cézanne: Paintings, Watercolors & Drawings; A Loan Exhibition, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1952), 70, cat. 78; Meyer Schapiro, Paul Cézanne (Harry N. Abrams, 1952), 16; Maurice Raynal, Cézanne, trans. Karl Georg Hemmerich (Skira, 1954), 89 (color ill.); Reff, “Cézanne’s ‘Cardplayers,’” 111; Rewald, The Watercolours, 176, no. 377; Cachin et al., Cézanne, cat. 133; and FWN 1760.
  47. Richard Kendall, ed., Cézanne by Himself: Drawings, Paintings, Writings (Macdonald, 1988), 315; Cachin et al., Cézanne, cat. 133; Mary Tompkins Lewis, Cézanne (Phaidon, 2000), 266, fig. 166 (color ill.); Ireson and Wright, Cézanne’s Card Players, cat. 6; and FWN 1760.
  48. Venturi, Cézanne, 119 (ill.), 164; Kendall, Cézanne by Himself, 315; Tompkins Lewis, Cézanne, 266, fig. 166 (color ill.); Ireson and Wright, Cézanne’s Card Players, cat. 6; Borchardt-Hume et al., Cezanne, cat. 114; and FWN 1760.
  49. See the curatorial entry, n. 27, for more on this mark.

How to Cite

Entry by Fabienne Ruppen; Technical Report by Kristi Dahm, “Cat. 9 A Study for the Card Players, 1890–92,” 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/10.53269/9780865593251/14. © 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/.

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