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Christie’s to sell Paul Cézanne’s ‘Nature morte avec pot au lait, melon et sucrier’

Paul Cézanne, Nature morte avec pot au lait, melon et sucrier

Property from the Edsel & Eleanor Ford House, Paul Cézanne, ‘Nature morte avec pot au lait, melon et sucrier’, watercolor over pencil on paper, Painted in 1900-1906. In the region of $25 million

Christie’s to sell Paul Cézanne’s ‘Nature morte’ Paul Cézanne’s ‘Nature morte avec pot au lait, melon et sucrier’, dated to 1900-1906 (in the region of $25 million) will highlight Christie’s October 6 Evening Sale of 20th and 21st Century Art.]]>

August 26, 2020, source: Christie’s

The compositions that Paul Cézanne created in watercolor after 1900, until his death six years later, were the culmination of his lifelong study of painting and constitute the final flowering of his art. Standing at the precipice of abstraction, these works represent Cézanne’s most revolutionary body of work. Nature morte avec pot au lait, melon et sucrier is the apogee of Cézanne’s work in watercolor, and a defining moment in the commencement of Modern Art as we now know it.

The history of this picture’s ownership is appropriately distinguished; from the fabled dealer Ambroise Vollard to Alexandre Berthier, the fourth and final Prince of Wagram, killed in the First World War, the watercolor eventually made its way to America in 1929, and in 1933 entered the esteemed family collection assembled by Edsel and Eleanor Ford. Nature morte avec pot au lait, melon et sucrier is the finest watercolor by the artist to come to auction in nearly forty years.

It is fitting that this groundbreaking painting was acquired by the Ford family, who represent the very pinnacle of American innovation. Edsel Ford was the only son of Henry Ford, the American industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Company. The painting occupied Edsel and Eleanor Ford’s collection until Eleanor’s death in 1976 when it was bequeathed to the private operating foundation that would become Edsel & Eleanor Ford House.

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Cezanne watercolour at Sothebys (news, 2007)

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Christie's to sell Paul Cézanne’s 'Nature morte avec pot au lait, melon et sucrier'