“The Marne Coast” - a painting by Paul Cezanne from the collection of the State Hermitage [1] .
| ||
| Paul Cezanne | ||
| The coast of Marne . c. 1888 | ||
| fr. Bords de marne | ||
| oil on canvas . 65.5 × 81.3 cm | ||
| State Hermitage Museum , St. Petersburg | ||
| ( inv. ) | ||
The painting depicts a lone two-story manor house with a turret on the banks of the Marne River , surrounded by poplars and willows with reflection in still water.
The painting was painted around 1888 in Chantilly , where Cezanne from Paris often visited in the summer of 1888, and is a vivid illustration of the two main topics that interested the artist at that time - trees and water [2] .
The main research associate of the Department of Western European Fine Arts of the State Hermitage, Doctor of Art History A. G. Kostenevich, in his essay on French art of the 19th and early 20th centuries, noted, describing the picture:
... the Cezanne river cannot be rippled. She is a mirror. The foliage of his trees is unknown in awe. Everything hardens, subject to a supernatural crystalline structure, and this structure, which expresses the regular order of nature, the organic rationality of existence, has a long contemplation. ... To convey stability in the landscape, no matter what changes take place in it, is one of Cezanne's main goals. The spirit of his painting is designed to preserve and perpetuate the greatness of nature [3] .
Initially, the painting was exhibited in the gallery of A. Vollard , where in 1906 it was acquired by the American industrialist Henry Osborne Hevemeyer [4] . In 1907, Hevemeier passed away and his testament collection was divided between his widow Luisin and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Marne Coast remained in the possession of Luisin Hevemeier. Member of the board of directors of the Sotheby's auction house, Philip Hook, in his research on the history of the gallery trade in paintings, noted that the reason for selling the widow of Hevemeier was that, in her opinion, the prices for Cezanne paintings reached a “scandalous” level [5] . In June 1909, with the mediation of the American artist Mary Cassett , she put up two of her Cezannes (besides the “Marne's Coast” also called “Self-Portrait in a Cassette”) for a commission sale in the Duran Ruel Gallery in Paris , which soon bought them out at 7500 francs each and literally two weeks later, he resold both paintings to the Moscow merchant and collector I. A. Morozov [6] . At the same time, Hook claims that Morozov paid 30,000 francs for each [5] , while A.K. Kostenevich notes that Morozov paid 18,000 francs for the “Coast of the Marne,” and 12,000 for the “Self-portrait in a cassette,” there are 30 thousand for both paintings [7] .
After the October Revolution, Morozov’s collection was nationalized, and this painting among others was in the State Museum of New Western Art , in 1930 it was transferred to the State Hermitage [4] . Since the end of 2014, exhibited in the Gallery in memory of Sergei Schukin and the Morozov brothers in the building of the General Staff Building (Hall 410) [8] .
There are two more paintings by Cezanne with a very close motive and image of the same house. One of them is in a private collection [9] (A. G. Kostenevich mistakenly believes that the painting is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington ), the other is in the collection of the US Presidents residence at the White House [10] . The existence of a watercolor drawing with the same plot is also noted [2] .
Notes
- ↑ State Hermitage Museum. - Paul Cezanne “The Marne Coast”
- ↑ 1 2 Barskaya, Kostenevich, 1991 , p. 62.
- ↑ Kostenevich A.G. French art of the 19th - early 20th centuries in the Hermitage. Essay guide. L .: Art, 1984. - S. 133.
- ↑ 1 2 The Morozov Brothers, 2019 , p. 110.
- ↑ 1 2 Hook. Swindlers, 2018 , p. 203.
- ↑ Ternovets, 1977 , p. 111.
- ↑ The Morozov Brothers, 2019 , p. 106, 110.
- ↑ State Hermitage Museum. - The building of the General Staff. - Paul Cezanne Hall
- ↑ The Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings of Paul Cezanne. - "Bords de Marne"
- ↑ White House Collection. - "House on the Marne"
Literature
- Barskaya A. G., Kostenevich A. G. French painting. The second half of the XIX - XX century. Catalog (State Hermitage Museum. Collection of Western European Painting). - L .: Art, 1991 .-- 473 p.
- Brothers Morozov. Great Russian collectors: exhibition catalog / State Hermitage Museum; State Museum of Fine Arts named after A.S. Pushkin. - SPb. : Publishing House of the State. Hermitage, 2019 .-- 368 p. - ISBN 978-5-93572-861-8 .
- Ternovets B.N. Letters. Diaries. Articles / Comp., Entry. article, texts for sections and comments. L.S. Aleshina and N.V. Yavorskaya. - M .: Soviet artist, 1977. - 360 p.
- Hook F. Gallery of crooks. History of art and those who sell it. from English V. Akhtyrsky. - SPb. : Alphabet, Alphabet-Atticus, 2018 .-- 448 p. - ISBN 978-5-389-12828-6 .