Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)
Around 1900
Oil paint on canvas
82.3 x 101 cm
Acquired by Oskar Reinhart in 1925
This is one of Paul Cézanne’s largest and most ambitious still-life paintings. Although composed of humble domestic objects – country pottery and fruit on a kitchen table – the artist presents it as an epic scene, akin to a vast landscape. The work challenged the conventional status of still life as a minor genre of painting.
Cézanne chose to paint the same jug and patterned fabric in a number of his still-life compositions over several years. His lively, sometimes sketchy brushwork gives the sense of an artist exploring every facet of the objects in front of him. However, he was able to structure the composition as a whole to give the work a monumental presence.