Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier

A curtain, an earthenware jug, a bowl heaped with apples and oranges. Cézanne arranged them so carefully that the jug bends to fit the fruit, and the picture once belonged to Paul Gauguin.

The story behind the painting

Cézanne explored landscapes and portraits, but he kept returning to still life, a genre long dismissed as unimaginative. He was especially drawn to fruit, which let him study how objects correspond to one another and how a composition finds harmony and balance. He painted Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier, Curtain, Jug and Fruit Bowl, around 1893 to 1894, while Wikidata places it more broadly in the 1890s. Though his objects can look randomly placed, his images were carefully constructed to experiment with perspective. He wrote that painting from nature is not copying the object but realising one's sensations.

What to look for

The canvas, about 59 by 72 cm, shows a wooden table holding a large earthenware jug and a fruit bowl stacked with apples and oranges. On the left a curtain hangs in front of a patterned wall. A white cloth is draped across the table, with more fruit placed among its folds. Watch the jug: it is painted against ordinary perspective, adapted to the shapes of the fruit and the other elements around it. Each object's rich colour is rendered individually through a full range of shades, and the whole is a study of outlines and symmetry.

Meaning and intent

Cézanne was fascinated by optics in art. His still lifes study both the geometric forms of objects and the shifting ways our eyes see them, and he tried to show objects from several viewpoints to capture the complexity of a visual image. By choosing everyday things, he challenged an establishment that ranked still life low. This picture is a formal composition about form, balance and symmetry, and the distinctive brushwork and distortion of such works went on to influence twentieth century styles such as Cubism.

Legacy

The painting was owned by Paul Gauguin, and later by Ambroise Vollard, Cornelis Hoogendijk, Paul Rosenberg, Albert C. Barnes and the Carroll Carstairs Gallery. It was part of the Whitney family collection, and Wikidata links it to the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1999 it was sold at Sotheby's in New York, setting a record for a still life at auction, and it later passed privately to other collectors. A second version, painted by Cézanne in the same year under the same title, is in a private collection.