Cézanne, Paul (1839-1906)
Madame Cézanne dans une robe rouge (Mme Cézanne in a Red Dress)
1888–1890
Oil on canvas, 116.5 x 89.5 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Of the four portraits that Cézanne painted of his wife wearing a shawl-collared red dress, this is the only one to show her in an elaborately furnished interior. Seated in a high-backed yellow chair and wedged between well-placed props that seem to bend to her form and shift to her weight, Madame Cézanne is the lynchpin of a tilting, spatially complex composition. The mottled blue wall, the dark red band that edges the wainscoting, and the mirror over the fireplace at left identify the setting as the apartment that Cézanne rented at 15 quai d’Anjou, Paris, from 1888 to 1890. (MET)
See also:
• Fiquet Cézanne, Marie-Hortense (1850-1922)