Paul Cézanne 1839 -1906
Black chalk with stump on laid paper, 485 x 307 mm
Bequeathed by Louis C.G. Clarke, 1960; received 1961
Collections record: PD.55-1961
© The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
This vigorous drawing was probably executed sometime between 1863 and 1865, during one of the sessions at the Académie Suisse, an open studio located in l’Île de la Cité, which was run by a pupil of Jacques-Louis David’s known as ‘père Suisse’. Pissarro, who knew Cézanne at this time and remained one of his loyalest friends, recorded meeting this ‘strange Provençal’ as early as 1863, at which time his drawings from the life were, he later wrote, ‘ridiculed by all the talentless’ among his fellow students.
