Cézanne enthused about the fishing village of L’Estaque to Pissarro in 1876: "It is like a playing card. Red roofs over the blue sea. . . . The sun is so terrific here that it seems to me as if the objects were silhouetted not only in black and white, but in blue, red, brown, and violet." Cézanne painted some twenty views of L'Estaque over the next decade, a dozen of them facing toward or across the gulf of Marseilles. In the distance of this painting, atop the hill to the right of the jetty, the towers of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde stand watch over the city of Marseilles.
Credit Line:H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
Object Number:29.100.67
[Ambroise Vollard, Paris, until 1901; not in stock book; one of seven Cézannes sold and then shipped on June 5 to Havemeyer]; Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, New York (1901–his d. 1907); Mrs. H. O. (Louisine W.) Havemeyer, New York (1907–d. 1929; cat., 1931, pp. 56–57, ill., as "Landscape-L'Estaque")
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The H. O. Havemeyer Collection," March 10–November 2, 1930, no. 5 (as "L'Estaque") [2nd ed., 1958, no. 61].
Paris. Musée de l'Orangerie. "Cézanne," May–October 1936, no. 43.
Art Institute of Chicago. "Cézanne: Paintings, Watercolors & Drawings," February 7–March 16, 1952, no. 49.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Cézanne: Paintings, Watercolors & Drawings," April 4–May 18, 1952, no. 49.
Hempstead, N. Y. Hofstra College. "Metropolitan Museum Masterpieces," June 26–September 1, 1952, no. 32 (as "The Gulf of Marseilles Seen from L'Estaque").
Eugene. University of Oregon. "Festival Exhibition of 20th Century Painting and Sculpture," March 1–29, 1953, no catalogue?
Portland, Oreg. Portland Art Museum. "Festival Exhibition of 20th Century Painting and Sculpture," April 3–May 3, 1953, no catalogue?
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries," November 14, 1970–June 1, 1971, no. 383.
Paris. Grand Palais. "Centenaire de l'impressionnisme," September 21–November 24, 1974, no. 8.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Impressionist Epoch," December 12, 1974–February 10, 1975, no. 8.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape," June 28–September 16, 1984, no. 128.
Art Institute of Chicago. "A Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape," October 23, 1984–January 6, 1985, no. 128.
Paris. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. "L'impressionnisme et le paysage français," February 4–April 22, 1985, no. 128.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection," March 27–June 20, 1993, no. A75.
Rome. Complesso del Vittoriano. "Cézanne: Il padre dei moderni," March 7–July 21, 2002, unnumbered cat.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "Cézanne in Provence," January 29–May 7, 2006, no. 49.
Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence. "Cézanne in Provence," June 9–September 17, 2006, no. 49.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920," February 4–May 6, 2007, no. 77.
Berlin. Neue Nationalgalerie. "Französische Meisterwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts aus dem Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 1–October 7, 2007, unnumbered cat.
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. "Earth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art—Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," October 6, 2012–January 4, 2013, no. 130.
Beijing. National Museum of China. "Earth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art—Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 8–May 9, 2013, no. 130.
Harry Graf Kessler. "Deutschland und die Auslandskunst." Deutsche und französische Kunst: Eine Auseinandersetzung deutscher Künstler, Galerieleiter, Sammler und Schriftsteller. 2nd. ed. Munich, [1913], p. 122.
"Havemeyer Collection at Metropolitan Museum: Havemeyers Paid Small Sums for Masterpieces." Art News 28 (March 15, 1930), p. 43, ill., calls it "L'Estaque".
"The H. O. Havemeyer Collection." Parnassus 2 (March 1930), p. 7, calls it "Vue de l'Estaque," and "one of Cézanne's most complete and mature works".
Frank Jewett Mather Jr. "The Havemeyer Pictures." The Arts 16 (March 1930), pp. 450, 483, calls it "A View near Arles"; suggests that Arthur B. Davies advised Mrs. Havemeyer to purchase her Cézanne paintings.
Harry B. Wehle. "The Exhibition of the H. O. Havemeyer Collection." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 25 (March 1930), p. 58.
H. O. Havemeyer Collection: Catalogue of Paintings, Prints, Sculpture and Objects of Art. n.p., 1931, pp. 56–57, ill., calls it "Landscape-L'Estaque".
Lionello Venturi. "Cézanne." L'arte 6 (July 1935), pp. 302, 386, 391, fig. 15, discusses it in relation to Émile Loubon's painting, "View of Marseilles Seen from the Aygalades" (1853; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseilles) [see Ref. Leca 2006].
Lionello Venturi. Cézanne: son art—son oeuvre. Paris, 1936, vol. 1, pp. 53–54, 157, no. 429; vol. 2, pl. 122, no. 429, dates it 1883–85; identifies Notre-Dame de la Garde, Roucas Blanc, and Mont Marseilleveyre in the distance; calls it "une des plus parfaites parmi les vues du Golfe de Marseille: pleine de grâce, de sérénité, du sens de l'universel".
Charles Sterling inCézanne. Exh. cat., Musée de l'Orangerie. Paris, 1936, pp. 79–80, no. 43, dates it about 1883; states that L'Estaque is here painted from the viewpoint of Saint-Henry.
Douglas Lord. "Paul Cézanne." Burlington Magazine 69 (July 1936), p. 35, dates it 1878.
Fritz Novotny. Cézanne. Vienna, 1937, pl. 37, calls it "L'Estaque and the Bay of Marseilles" and dates it about 1883.
"Cézanne après inventaire." Almanach des Arts (August 1937), p. 249, ill.
Fritz Novotny. Cézanne und das Ende der Wissenschaftlichen Perspektive. Vienna, 1938, p. 44 n. 38, p. 193.
Robert J. Goldwater. "Cézanne in America: The Master's Paintings in American Collections." Art News Annual, section I (The 1938 Annual), 36 (March 26, 1938), p. 154, discusses it in relation to other paintings of L'Estaque (Museum of Modern Art, New York, V492, R443; Art Institute of Chicago, V493, R626; and private collection, New York, V405, R519).
Albert C. Barnes and Violette De Mazia. The Art of Cézanne. New York, 1939, pp. 342–43, 412, no. 101, call it "View of Estaque" and date it mid-1880s.
Thomas Craven, ed. A Treasury of Art Masterpieces, from the Renaissance to the Present Day. New York, 1939, pp. 529–31, colorpl. 129.
R. H. Wilenski. Modern French Painters. New York, [1940], p. 76, pl. 20B, dates it about 1884.
Erle Loran. Cézanne's Composition: Analysis of His Form with Diagrams and Photographs of His Motifs. [2nd ed., 1946]. Berkeley, 1943, p. 58.
Introduction by Harry B. Wehle. Masterpieces in Color at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Ed. Bryan Holme. New York, 1945, p. 15, colorpl. LVII, dates it about 1883.
Lionello Venturi. Painting and Painters: How to Look at a Picture, from Giotto to Chagall. New York, 1945, p. 185, fig. 42, calls it "The Gulf of Marseilles" and compares it to Pissarro, "Oise River near Pontoise" (1873; Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown).
Bernard Dorival. Cézanne. [English ed., 1948]. Paris, 1948, pp. 52–54, 72, 156–57, pl. 75, dates it 1883–85 and calls it the masterpiece of the L'Estaque series; compares it to "La Mer à L'Estaque" (Musée Picasso, Paris; V425, R395).
Fritz Novotny. Cézanne. New York, 1948, pl. 35, calls it "L'Estaque and the Bay of Marseilles" and dates it about 1883.
Liliane Guerry. Cézanne et l'expression de l'espace. [1st ed.; 2nd ed., 1966]. Paris, 1950, pp. 88–92, 95–96, 102, fig. 17, dates it 1883–85; compares it to landscapes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti.
Lionello Venturi. Impressionists and Symbolists. Vol. 2, New York, 1950, pp. 132–33, fig. 130, calls it "The Bay of Marseilles, seen from L'Estaque".
Daniel Catton Rich inCézanne: Paintings, Watercolors & Drawings. Exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago. [Chicago], 1952, pp. 48–49, no. 49, ill., calls this picture "a suavely balanced composition" in comparison to the "highly dramatic simplification" of the similar painting in the Art Institute of Chicago (V493, R626).
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 17.
Lionello Venturi. Four Steps Toward Modern Art: Giorgione, Caravaggio, Manet, Cézanne. New York, 1956, pp. 70–72, ill. (frontispiece), compares it to "Houses in Provence" (National Gallery of Art, Washington; V397, R438).
Robert William Ratcliffe. "Cézanne's Working Methods and Their Theoretical Background." PhD diss., University of London, 1960, p. 44, based on the similarity of its color to the Gardanne series, dates this picture to either of Cézannes trips to L'Estaque, from November 1883 to February 1884 or in early 1885.
Lorenz Dittmann. "Zur Kunst Cézannes." Festschrift Kurt Badt zum siebzigsten Geburtstage. Berlin, 1961, p. 207, fig. 6.
Jay M. Kloner inCézanne Watercolors. Ed. Theodore Reff. Exh. cat., M. Knoedler & Co. New York, 1963, p. 29, under no. 15, relates it to a watercolor depicting the same portion of L'Estaque and the Bay of Marseilles (Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; RWC116).
Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 3, XIX–XX Centuries. New York, 1967, pp. 105–6, ill., date it probably about 1883–85; state that although it bears a superficial resemblance to the L'Estaque paintings in Chicago (V493, R626) and the Musée d'Orsay, Paris (V428, R390), ours is much more detailed.
George Heard Hamilton. Painting and Sculpture in Europe: 1880 to 1940. Baltimore, 1967, pp. 20–21, pl. 8B, dates it 1883–85.
Margaretta M. Salinger. "Windows Open to Nature." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27 (Summer 1968), unpaginated, ill., dates it about 1884, and states that "the geometric shapes of the houses foreshadow his views of Gardanne" [see MMA 57.181].
Richard W. Murphy et al. The World of Cézanne: 1839–1906. New York, 1968, pp. 127, 152, ill. (color), dates it 1883–85.
Chuji Ikegami. Cézanne. Tokyo, 1969, p. 122, no. 28, ill. (color and black and white).
Sandra Orienti inL'opera completa di Cézanne. [French ed., 1975; English ed., 1985]. Milan, 1970, p. 105, no. 422, ill.
Adrien Chappuis. The Drawings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné. Greenwich, Conn., 1973, vol. 1, p. 120, under no. 338, mentions it in relationship to a pencil drawing which includes a study of the same hills near Marseilles (formerly collection Mr. and Mrs. Leigh Block, Chicago).
John Rewald. "The Impressionist Brush." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 32, no. 3 (1973/1974), pp. 37–38, 41, no. 24, ill. (overall and color detail), dates it about 1885.
Carl R. Baldwin. The Impressionist Epoch. Exh. brochure, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [New York], 1974, p. 17.
Charles S. Moffett inImpressionism: A Centenary Exhibition. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1974, pp. 59–63, no. 8, ill. (color, overall and detail) [French ed., "Centenaire de l'Impressionnisme," Éditions des musées nationaux, Paris], dates it about 1884–86.
William Gaunt. Marine Painting: An Historical Survey. London, 1975, p. 204, fig. 225, dates it 1883–85.
Liliane Brion-Guerry inCézanne: The Late Work. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1977, p. 76 [French ed., "Cézanne: les dernières années (1895–1906)," Paris, 1978, p. 18].
Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, p. 430, fig. 787 (color), dates it about 1883–85.
Judith Wechsler. The Interpretation of Cézanne. Ann Arbor, Mich., 1981, p. 50.
John Rewald. Paul Cézanne: The Watercolors, A Catalogue Raisonné. Boston, 1983, p. 112, under no. 116.
Richard Shiff. Cézanne and the End of Impressionism. Chicago, 1984, pp. 116–17, 119, 121, fig. 27, dates it about 1883–85.
Scott Schaefer inA Day in the Country: Impressionism and the French Landscape. Exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles, 1984, pp. 306, 363, no. 128, ill. p. 310 (color) [French ed., "L'impressionisme et le paysage français," RdMN, Paris, 1985, pp. 330, 332, no. 128, ill. (color)], dates it 1883–85.
Charles S. Moffett. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1985, pp. 10, 188–89, 253, ill. (color), calls it more complex than the Chicago and Orsay paintings (V493, R626; V428, R390).
John Rewald. Cézanne: A Biography. New York, 1986, p. 276, ill. p. 155, dates it about 1885.
Frances Weitzenhoffer. The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America. New York, 1986, p. 256.
Gary Tinterow et al. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vol. 8, Modern Europe. New York, 1987, pp. 6, 49, colorpl. 30, date it about 1878–82, noting that more than a dozen related works of this view exist from the 1880s; compare Cézanne's working methods in this series to those of Pissarro and Monet.
Richard Kendall, ed. Cézanne by Himself: Drawings, Paintings, Writings. London, 1988, ill. p. 134 (color), dates it about 1883–85.
Sidney Geist. Interpreting Cézanne. Cambridge, Mass., 1988, pp. 121–22, 248, 283, pl. 104, dates it 1883–85; analyzes this composition in terms of Cézanne's relationships with his mother and wife.
John Rewald with the research assistance of Frances Weitzenhoffer. Cézanne and America: Dealers, Collectors, Artists and Critics, 1891–1921. The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, Princeton, 1989, pp. 125, 128 n. 44, pp. 311, 347, fig. 69.
Richard Verdi. Cézanne and Poussin: The Classical Vision of Landscape. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Scotland. Edinburgh, 1990, p. 153.
Hajo Düchting. Paul Cézanne 1839–1906: Natur wird Kunst. Ed. Ingo F. Walther. [Engl. ed., 1999]. Cologne, 1990, p. 104, ill. p. 12 (color).
Gretchen Wold inSplendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1993, pp. 303–4, no. A75, ill., states that it was possibly bought by the Havemeyers through Vollard.
Maria Teresa Benedetti. Cézanne. [Italian ed., 1995]. Paris, 1995, pp. 124, 149, ill. (color), dates it 1883–85.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 466, ill.
Joseph J. Rishel inCézanne. Exh. cat., Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris. Philadelphia, 1996, p. 225, fig. 1 [French ed., Paris, 1995], dates it 1884; tentatively identifies the tall tower on the right as the Tour Sommati.
Walter Feilchenfeldt inCézanne. Exh. cat., Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris. Philadelphia, 1996, p. 574 [French ed., Paris, 1995].
John Rewald, in collaboration with Walter Feilchenfeldt, and Jayne Warman. The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné. New York, 1996, vol. 1, pp. 17, 412, 568, 570–72, no. 625, colorpl. 50; vol. 2, p. 211, fig. 625, dates it about 1885 and notes that the square tower at the lower right, La Tour Sommati, was destroyed toward the end of the nineteenth century.
Maria Teresa Benedetti. Cézanne: il padre dei moderni. Exh. cat., Complesso del Vittoriano. Milan, 2002, pp. 27, 150–51, ill. (color).
Robert Jensen inCézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde. Ed. Rebecca A. Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2006, pp. 41, 46 n. 76, p. 47 n. 88 [French ed., "De Cézanne à Picasso: Chefs-d'oeuvre de la galerie Vollard," Paris, 2007, pp. 54, 57 nn. 76, 88], states that the Havemeyers bought this work from Vollard before 1900, possibly in 1898; notes that this work shows signs of once having been rolled and therefore may have been included in Vollard's first Cézanne exhibition.
Jayne S. Warman inCézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde. Ed. Rebecca A. Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2006, p. 340 n. 3, under no. 36, identifies this picture among the seven Cézannes shipped to the Havemeyers by Vollard on June 5, 1901.
Philip Conisbee in Philip Conisbee and Denis Coutagne. Cézanne in Provence. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2006, p. 15 [French ed., Paris, p. 39].
Benedict Leca in Philip Conisbee and Denis Coutagne. Cézanne in Provence. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2006, p. 55 [French ed., Paris, p. 77], considers Loubon's "View of Marseilles Seen from the Aygalades" (1853; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseilles) a prototype for this picture [see Venturi 1935].
Véronique Serrano in Philip Conisbee and Denis Coutagne. Cézanne in Provence. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2006, pp. 134–35, 319, no. 49, colorpl. 49 [French ed., Paris, pp. 154–55, no. 49, colorpl. 49], calls this picture and the Chicago version (V493, R626) "undoubtedly the most harmonious works Cézanne produced at L'Estaque".
Denis Coutagne. Cézanne en vérité(s). [Arles], 2006, pp. 422–23.
Susan Alyson Stein inThe Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. New York, 2007, pp. 111, 185–86, no. 77, ill. (color and black and white).
Susan Alyson Stein inMasterpieces of European Painting, 1800–1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, pp. 127, 220–21, no. 116, ill. (color and black and white).
Matthew Simms. Cézanne’s Watercolors: Between Drawing and Painting. New Haven, 2008, p. 79, fig. 56 (color), argues that its clarity of form and sharp figure-ground oppositions were first articulated in Cézanne’s watercolors of L’Estaque in the late 1870s and early 1880s.
Anabelle Kienle inCézanne and Beyond. Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 2009, p. 317, ill. p. 319 (color), notes that this painting is present as an "indirect mediation" in Beckmann's "Seascape with Agaves and Old Castle" (1939; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie).
Michael R. Taylor inCézanne and Beyond. Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 2009, p. 559 n. 31.
Katherine Sachs inCézanne and Beyond. Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 2009, p. 442, colorpl. 164, quotes Ellsworth Kelly's remarks about the indirect influence of the blue in this painting on several of his works.
Jayne S. Warman in Gail Stavitsky and Katherine Rothkopf. Cézanne and American Modernism. Exh. cat., Montclair Art Museum. Montclair, 2009, p. 88 n. 34.
Emily Schuchardt Navratil in Gail Stavitsky and Katherine Rothkopf. Cézanne and American Modernism. Exh. cat., Montclair Art Museum. Montclair, 2009, p. 361.
Jean Arrouye inCézanne and Paris. Exh. cat., Musée du Luxembourg. Paris, 2011, p. 156 [French ed., 2011].
Susan Alyson Stein inEarth, Sea, and Sky: Nature in Western Art; Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. [Tokyo], 2012, pp. 192, 201, 262–63, no. 130, ill. (color and b&w) [Chinese ed., Hefei Shi, 2013, pp. 286–87, no. 130, ill. (color)].
Walter Feilchenfeldt, Jayne Warman, and David Nash. The Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings of Paul Cezanne: An Online Catalogue Raisonné. 2014–?, no. 195, ill. (color) [https://www.cezannecatalogue.com/catalogue/entry.php?id=607].
Geneviève Blanc. L'oeuvre de Cézanne à L'Estaque: Huiles, aquarelles, dessins, 1864–1885. Marseilles, 2019, p. 111, fig. 130 (color), compares the view in the painting to a recreated schema of the Gulf of Marseilles that shows the locations of the now demolished tileworks with their cheminees, the Tour Sommati, and the Chateau Bovis (at the center of the picture’s bottom edge); notes the artist created a sparser and more condensed view of the townscape by eliminating certain rooflines, a solution that is consistent across all his paintings of views from L'Estaque train station.
Laura D. Corey and Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen. "Visions of Collecting." Making The Met, 1870–2020. Ed. Andrea Bayer with Laura D. Corey. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2020, pp. 140, 365 n. 54.
Robert Jensen. "The 1895 Cézanne Show at Vollard's Revisited." Art and Visual Studies Faculty Working Papers. Vol. 2, 2022, p. 15
[https://uknowledge.uky.edu/art_papers/2/], as "The Bay of Marseilles Seen from L'Estaque".
Two paintings close in composition to this one are in the Art Institute of Chicago (Venturi 1936, no. 493; Rewald 1996, no. 626) and the Musée d'Orsay, Paris (V428, R390). There is a watercolor depicting the same rooftops seen in the lower right of The Met's picture (Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam; V916, Rewald 1983, no. 116) and a pencil drawing (Chappuis 1973, no. 338; formerly collection Mr. and Mrs. Leigh Block, Chicago), which includes a study of the same range of hills seen across the water. Rewald (1996) identifies three other related drawings (Chappuis nos. 814–16).
The ninth-annual Women and the Critical Eye program featuring a conversation between Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow, who discuss Leonard Lauder's criteria for collecting, including the importance of the "aesthetic wow," rarity, state of conservation, and attention to a work's curriculum vitae.
Paul Cézanne (French, Aix-en-Provence 1839–1906 Aix-en-Provence)
1878–80
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