Of the twenty or so still lifes Cézanne produced on paper during his final years, this watercolor is among the most fully realized. The composition is crowded with rotund fruit and tableware and colored intensely with a complete rainbow of hues, from the deep blue of the watermelon to the blazing red of the pomegranates (in French, grenades).

In another watercolor done at the same "sitting" Cézanne studied the same arrangement of objects but moved his position a quarter turn around the table. His second take (now in a private collection in Switzerland) shows the glass carafe—seen in this work at far right—in the center foreground of the composition; the wine bottle, with its paper label gleaming here above the melon, there stands behind the sugar bowl. The artist's shifted viewpoint altered entirely the regiment of forms he had at first admired, but presented a new "objectscape" to engage his love of shapes and spaces.

Of the nine watercolors by Cézanne now in the Museum's collection, this is our first still life.