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Image

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Paul Cézanne

The Card Player

Description

Maker

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)

Title

The Card Player

Year

ca. 1890-1892

Medium

  • Graphite and watercolor on wove paper

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

  • Graphite and watercolor on wove paper

Materials

watercolor, graphite

Supports

  • wove paper

Dimensions

48.6 x 36.2 cm (19 1/8 x 14 1/4 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

On verso, at lower right, in red crayon: PH / 138; at upper right, in red crayon: PH; at lower left: RISD Museum stamp

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Gift of Mrs. Murray S. Danforth

Object Number

42.211

Type

  • Drawings and Watercolors

Projects & Publications

Publications

  • Books

A Handbook of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design

  • Books

Exchange Exhibition, Exhibition Exchange: From the Collection of Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University; From the Collection of The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.

  • Journal

From Dürer to Van Gogh: Gifts from Eliza Greene Radeke and Helen Metcalf Danforth

  • Books

Selection V: French Watercolors and Drawings, ca. 1800-1910

French watercolors and drawings from the Museum's collection, ca. 1800-1910

  • Books

Selected Works

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Inventing Impressionism
Oct 21, 2016 – Jun 11, 2017

Label copy

This drawing belongs to a series depicting card players, using men from the artist’s hometown as models. During the early 1890s, Cézanne made drawings from his own paintings on this subject, modifying and strengthening their compositions. Here, the man’s substantial form is conveyed almost entirely with spare, loosely sketched graphite lines. Light touches of watercolor highlight the blue of his smock and his ruddy cheeks, in contrast to the white expanse of the paper. The artist’s choice to focus on this man, excluding his partners in the game, underscores the subject’s intense and introspective focus.

From Dürer to Van Gogh
Gifts from Eliza Greene Radeke and Helen Metcalf Danforth
Jun 05, 2008 – Oct 26, 2008

Label copy

Cézanne made five paintings depicting card players in the early 1890s, using peasants in the region of Aix-en-Provence as models. He made drawings after his own paintings between versions in order to strengthen and make adjustments to his compositions. The RISD sheet was likely copied after the oil painting now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In the drawing, Cézanne simplified the human form, eliminating unnecessary or complicating details. The viewer is forced to read the areas of untouched paper as lighted, volumetric form.

French Drawings in the Time of Degas
Aug 19, 2005 – Jan 22, 2006

Label copy

Cézanne and Degas had met by the late 1860s in Paris at the Café Guerbois, where they engaged in lively, if sometimes antagonistic, discussions. They both worked outside mainstream Impressionism, and they were among the most knowledgeable about art history and the most well read of their artists’ group. More so than most of their colleagues, they gave prominence to drawing: life drawing, copying, and studies for paintings. This drawing, after a figure in Cézanne’s painting The Card Players, ca. 1890-92 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), was made in preparation for another version of the subject. As a modern portrait, it would have had particular appeal for Degas.

Their mutual regard was long-standing. Degas acquired one of the first collections of Cézanne’s work, most of it just after the first Cézanne retrospective exhibition, organized by Ambroise Vollard in 1895. At this very time, Cézanne was copying a work by Degas.

Exchange Exhibition of Paintings from Rose Museum, Brandeis University
Feb 16, 1967 – Apr 02, 1967
Cézanne
Sep 23, 1954 – Oct 20, 1954
  • More Exhibition History +

Use & Feedback

Image use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use.

This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Tombstone

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
The Card Player, ca. 1890-1892
Graphite and watercolor on wove paper
48.6 x 36.2 cm (19 1/8 x 14 1/4 inches)
Gift of Mrs. Murray S. Danforth 42.211

To request new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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