Madame Cezanne in a Red Dress by Cezanne in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, August 2010

Artist: Paul Cézanne (French, Aix-en-Provence 1839–1906 Aix-en-Provence)

Title: Madame Cézanne (née Hortense Fiquet, 1850–1922) in a Red Dress

Date: 1888–90

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 45 7/8 x 35 1/4 in. ( 116.5 x 89.5 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: The Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ittleson Jr. Purchase Fund, 1962

Accession Number: 62.45


Gallery Label:

In size and conception, this is the most ambitious portrait of the many that Cézanne painted of his wife. It is closely related to three smaller paintings in which she also wears a shawl-collared red dress: one shows her posed in a similar fashion, holding a flower in her hand (Museu de Arte de São Paulo), and two present her seated in the same room and high-backed yellow chair (Art Institute of Chicago; private collection). The architectural features of the interior, including the mottled blue wall, the dark red band that edges the wainscoting, and the mirror over the fireplace identify this setting as the apartment that Cézanne rented at 15, quai d'Anjou, Paris, from 1888 to 1890.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/europe...