Portrait of Ambroise Vollard

A man sits in a brown suit, legs crossed, eyes like dark holes. He sat for 115 sessions and still Cézanne left two small patches of bare canvas on his hand. The sitter was the dealer who made Cézanne famous.

The story behind the painting

Ambroise Vollard noticed Cézanne's work in the window of Julien Tanguy's paint shop in Montmartre and recalled feeling as though he had been punched in the stomach. Cézanne, living in Provence, was still unknown. Vollard tracked him down, secured about 150 works through the painter's son, and in November 1895 held Cézanne's first solo exhibition, which transformed his reputation. Vollard later handled about two thirds of his work. This 1899 portrait is one of the first of Vollard and the only one he commissioned himself.

What to look for

Vollard sits in Cézanne's studio, one leg crossed over the other, one hand on a book in his lap and the other in his pocket, lit from a window on the left. He wears a brown suit and a bow tie. Bright patches of colour pick out his face and large forehead, against black eyes that have been likened to holes in a mask. His blank stare has been put down to exhaustion. Look closely at his right hand: two small patches of bare canvas, hardly noticeable, were never painted.

Meaning and intent

Cézanne treated people much like his fruit, in round geometric forms, painting only what he saw rather than mood or status. Vollard had to sit perfectly still, balanced on a stool on a platform, from around 8 in the morning to as late as 11.30 at night, over 115 sessions. When he once shifted, Cézanne asked whether an apple moves. About the bare patches, the painter said that if his copy at the Louvre went well, he might find the exact tone; a guess could force him to repaint the whole canvas.

Legacy

Cézanne finally abandoned the picture unfinished, an example of his perfectionism and of his readiness to accept an incomplete painting that satisfied him. Vollard treasured it until his death and bequeathed it to the Petit Palais in Paris, where it still hangs. He was painted often: Pierre Bonnard showed him at the head of a table, Renoir portrayed him in 1899, 1908 and 1917, and Picasso made a Cubist portrait in 1910, remarking that no beautiful woman had ever been portrayed more often than Vollard.