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

For a technical essay featuring this painting, see Hale 2014.

[Ambroise Vollard, Paris, 1904; stock book A, no. 4175; bought from the artist in half shares with Bernheim-Jeune on April 8 and transferred to them on July 4 for Fr 3,000; Bernheim-Jeune, stock no. 13621; sold by Bernheim on July 7 to Pellerin]; Auguste Pellerin, Paris and Neuilly (1904–d. 1929); his son, Jean-Victor Pellerin, Paris (1929–62; sold to The Met)

Paris. Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées. "Salon d'automne," October 1–22, 1907, no. 18 (in the "Exposition Rétrospective d'Oeuvres de Cézanne," as "Portrait de Mme Cézanne," lent by M. Pellerin).

Paris. Musée de l'Orangerie. "Cézanne," May–October 1936, no. 76 (as "Grand Portrait de Mme Cézanne en Rouge," lent by M. et Mme Pellerin, Paris).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Impressionist Epoch," December 12, 1974–February 10, 1975, not in catalogue.

Kunsthalle Tübingen. "Cezanne: Gemälde," January 16–May 2, 1993, no. 41.

Paris. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais. "Cézanne," September 25, 1995–January 7, 1996, no. 167 (as "Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair").

London. Tate Gallery. "Cézanne," February 8–April 28, 1996, no. 167.

Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Cézanne," May 30–September 1, 1996, no. 167.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920," February 4–May 6, 2007, no. 79.

Berlin. Neue Nationalgalerie. "Französische Meisterwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts aus dem Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 1–October 7, 2007, unnumbered cat.

Madrid. Museo Nacional del Prado. "El Greco y la pintura moderna," June 24–October 5, 2014, unnumbered cat.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Madame Cézanne," November 19, 2014–March 15, 2015, unnumbered cat. (pl. 22).

Paris. Musée d'Orsay. "Portraits de Cézanne," June 13–September 24, 2017, no. 42 (as "Madame Cézanne au fauteuil jaune").

London. National Portrait Gallery. "Cézanne Portraits," October 26, 2017–February 11, 2018, no. 14.4.

Washington. National Gallery of Art. "Cézanne Portraits," March 25–July 8, 2018, no. 14.4.

London. National Gallery. "After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art," March 25–August 13, 2023, no. 8.

Rainer Maria Rilke. Letter to Clara Rilke. October 16, 1907 [Engl. transl. published in Rainer Maria Rilke, "Letters on Cézanne," New York, 1985, pp. 57–58], mentions "those touchingly tentative portraits of Madame Cézanne" at the 1907 Salon d'Automne and describes the public's distaste for them.

[Ambroise Vollard]. Cézanne. [191?], ill., calls it "Madame Cézanne au fauteuil jaune" and dates it 1890–94.

Gustave Coquiot. Paul Cézanne. Paris, [1919], p. 238, ill. opp. p. 238, calls it "Portrait de Mme Cézanne,—à la pincette".

Julius Meier-Graefe. Cézanne und sein Kreis: Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschichte. 3rd ed. [1st ed., 1918]. Munich, 1920, ill. p. 167, dates it about 1888.

Georges Rivière. Le Maître Paul Cézanne. Paris, 1923, p. 216, calls it "Portrait de Madame Paul Cézanne en robe de laine rouge" and dates it 1888; states that it was painted in Cézanne's apartment in the quai d'Anjou.

Roger Fry. "Le développement de Cézanne." L'amour de l'art 7 (December 1926), p. 408, ill., comments that it could date before 1890, but that it already displays innovative methods; compares the colors to Vermeer.

Roger Fry. Cézanne: A Study of His Development. New York, 1927, pp. 68–69, fig. 34, pl. XXIII.

Julius Meier-Graefe. Cézanne. London, 1927, pl. LXVIII, dates it about 1888.

Frantz Jourdain and Robert Rey. Le Salon d'Automne. rev. ed. Paris, 1928, p. 59.

Georges Rivière. Cézanne: le peintre solitaire. Paris, 1933, p. 139, ill. p. 111, dates it 1887 in the caption and 1888 in the text.

Gerstle Mack. Paul Cézanne. New York, 1935, pl. 17, dates it about 1888.

Lionello Venturi. Cézanne: son art—son oeuvre. Paris, 1936, vol. 1, p. 188, no. 570; vol. 2, pl. 182, no. 570, calls it "Madame Cézanne au fauteuil jaune," dates it 1890–94, and locates it in the collection of J. V. Pellerin; identifies it as no. 18 of the Cézanne retrospective at the 1907 Salon d'Automne.

Charles Sterling in Cézanne. Exh. cat., Musée de l'Orangerie. Paris, 1936, pp. 100–101, no. 76, calls it "Grand portrait de Mme Cézanne en rouge" and dates it about 1888–90; comments that the curtain appears in a group of pictures from 1888–92, including "Boy with Skull" (Barnes Foundation, Merion, Penn; V679, R825) and "Mardi Gras" (Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts; V552, R618); observes that "Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair" (1888–90; formerly collection Alphonse Kann, now Art Institute of Chicago; V572, R653) depicts the sitter in the same red dress, pose, and setting.

René Huyghe. Cézanne. Paris, 1936, pp. 44, 56, 59, fig. 28, calls it "Portrait of Madame Cézanne au rideau" and dates it about 1888.

Maurice Raynal. Cézanne. Paris, 1936, pl. LXX, calls it "Mme Cézanne aux pincettes" and dates it about 1880.

Otto Benesch. "Cézanne: Zur 30.Wiederkehr seines Todestages am 22.Oktober." Die Kunst 75 (December 1936), ill. p. 70, dates it about 1888–90.

Fritz Novotny. Cézanne. Vienna, 1937, p. 8, pl. 63, dates it 1890–94.

Fritz Novotny. Cézanne und das Ende der Wissenschaftlichen Perspektive. Vienna, 1938, p. 87 n. 82.

Albert C. Barnes and Violette De Mazia. The Art of Cézanne. New York, 1939, pp. 217, 373–74, 415, no. 133, ill., call it "Madame Cézanne in Red, Holding Handkerchief" and date it to the early 1890s.

Raymond Cogniat. Cézanne. Paris, 1939, pl. 87, dates it 1890–94.

Erle Loran. Cézanne's Composition: Analysis of His Form with Diagrams and Photographs of His Motifs. [2nd ed., 1946]. Berkeley, 1943, pp. 85, 91.

Liliane Guerry. "Le Problème de l'équilibre spatial dans les portraits Cezanniens de la période constructive." Études d'art 2 (1946), pp. 88, 91, 93, 96–98, 104, fig. 1.

Liliane Guerry. Cézanne et l'expression de l'espace. [1st ed.; 2nd ed., 1966]. Paris, 1950, pp. 10, 35, 67, 76, 93, 97, 103, 105–6, 110–11, 115–16, 171–74, fig. 20, dates it 1890–94.

Lawrence Gowing and Ronald Alley. An Exhibition of Paintings by Cézanne. Exh. cat., Royal Scottish Academy Building. Edinburgh, 1954, unpaginated, under no. 47, calls ours among the most advanced and perhaps latest in date of six paintings set in the same room, all dated 1888–90: two of Madame Cézanne (Art Institute of Chicago, V572, R653; Fondation Beyeler, Basel, V571, R651) and three of a boy in a red waistcoat (Museum of Modern Art, New York, V680, R657; Sammlung E. G. Buerhle, Zurich, V681, R658; Barnes Foundation, Merion, Penn., V683, R656).

Robert William Ratcliffe. "Cézanne's Working Methods and Their Theoretical Background." PhD diss., University of London, 1960, p. 18.

Jean de Beucken. Cézanne: A Pictorial Biography. [German ed., 1960]. New York, 1962, pp. 93, 137, ill., dates it 1890–93, but states that it was painted in the quai d'Anjou apartment [where Cézanne lived from 1888–90; see Ref. Rishel 1996].

Kurt Badt. The Art of Cézanne. [German ed., 1956]. Berkeley, 1965, p. 153, mentions it as an example of "the way in which [Cézanne's] figures sit lost in space," imparting a sense of loneliness to his portraits.

Anne H. van Buren. "Madame Cézanne's Fashions and the Dates of Her Portraits." Art Quarterly 29 (1966), pp. 119, 121, 123, dates it to the early 1890s, citing the painting style and composition, but notes that it is impossible to date based on the "shapeless housedress" worn by the sitter; contrasts the "highly abstract composition" and "unstable forms" with the more spontaneous and realistic "Madame Cézanne in the Conservatory" (MMA 61.101.2).

Jean Paris. "Espaces de Cézanne." Cézanne. [Paris], 1966, pp. 167, 215, fig. 121, dates it 1890–94.

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. 100, 109–11, ill., date it about 1890, placing it ten years after "Madame Cézanne in the Conservatory" (MMA 61.101.2), in which she appears younger; in addition to the Beyeler and Chicago portraits of Madame Cézanne (V571, R651; V572, R653), mention "Madame Cézanne in a Red Dress" (1888–90; Museu de Arte, São Paulo, Brazil; V573, R652) as a "preliminary" phase of this "same pictorial theme".

Chuji Ikegami. Cézanne. Tokyo, 1969, p. 106, no. 25, ill., dates it 1890–94.

Sandra Orienti in L'opera completa di Cézanne. [French ed., 1975; English ed., 1985]. Milan, 1970, p. 112, no. 573, ill., dates it 1890–94.

Wayne Andersen. Cézanne's Portrait Drawings. Cambridge, Mass., 1970, p. 43 n. 7, suggests that the partially visible painting in the background of "Man with a Pipe" (Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; V688, R790) may represent this picture or one of the smaller portraits of Madame Cézanne in the red dress [Refs. Venturi 1936 and Rewald 1996 identify it as "Madame Cézanne" (about 1888; Detroit Institute of Arts; V528, R607)].

Lydie Huyghe in René Huyghe. La Relève du réel: la peinture française au XIXe siècle: impressionnisme, symbolisme. Paris, 1974, p. 225, date it about 1888.

John Rewald. "Some Entries for a New Catalogue Raisonné of Cézanne's Paintings." Gazette des beaux-arts, 6th ser., 86 (November 1975), p. 166, publishes a list from the Bernheim-Jeune archives calling this picture "Femme en rouge assise sous draperie" and noting that it was acquired from Vollard and sold on July 7, 1904 to Pellerin.

Liliane Brion-Guerry in Cézanne: The Late Work. Exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art. New York, 1977, pp. 77, 81, ill. [French ed., "Cézanne: les dernières années (1895–1906)," Paris, 1978, p. 19, 22, ill.], dates it about 1890.

Judith Wechsler. The Interpretation of Cézanne. Ann Arbor, Mich., 1981, p. 39, dates it to the late 1880s.

John Rewald. Paul Cézanne: The Watercolors, A Catalogue Raisonné. Boston, 1983, pp. 26, 157, under no. 296, p. 174, under no. 375, notes that the same mirror, wainscot, and curtain appear in the series of the boy in the red waistcoat (V683, 680–681; R656–658).

Charles S. Moffett. Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1985, pp. 11, 194–95, 254, ill. (color), dates it about 1890 and notes that it is one of twenty seven portraits of Madame Cézanne; observes that the flower she holds here "seems neither more nor less real than those in the curtain" and the reflection of another curtain in the mirror "is in keeping with the spatial dislocations" of the entire composition; notes that the two sides of the sitter's face are treated differently.

Ronald Pickvance in Cézanne. Exh. cat., Isetan Museum of Art. Tokyo, 1986, p. 66, ill., compares it to the São Paulo portrait (V573, R652).

Richard R. Brettell. Post-Impressionists. Chicago, 1987, p. 65, notes that in Chicago, Beyeler, and MMA portraits, Madame Cézanne is presented unfashionably, without hat or jewelry; observes that the yellow chair was a common type in French bourgeois households.

Bob Kirsch. "Paul Cézanne: 'Jeune fille au piano' and Some Portraits of His Wife, An Investigation of His Painting of the Late 1870s." Gazette des beaux-arts, 6th ser., 110 (July–August 1987), p. 24.

Richard Kendall, ed. Cézanne by Himself: Drawings, Paintings, Writings. London, 1988, p. 314, ill. p. 171 (color), dates it about 1890–94.

Ettore Camesasca. The São Paulo Collection: From Manet to Matisse. Exh. cat., Rijksmuseum Vincent Van Gogh, Amsterdam. Milan, 1989, pp. 112, 116, ill., calls the São Paulo portrait (V573, R652) a "'synthetic' re-issuing" of this work.

Götz Adriani. Cézanne: Gemälde. Exh. cat., Kunsthalle Tübingen. Cologne, 1993, pp. 52, 63, 79, 136, 138, 140, 144–47, 150, 153–54, 257, no. 41, ill. (color) [English ed., 1995], dates it between 1888 and the spring of 1890, in the apartment at 15, quai d'Anjou; considers this picture the first of the series, followed by the "intermediate" Chicago portrait (V572, R653), and then the "considerably reduced" São Paulo portrait (V573, R652); calls the Beyeler portrait (V571, R651) a later copy by Cézanne after the Chicago version; comments that our picture is the most imposing of Cézanne's portraits, noting "for all the seeming candor of their arrangment [sic], there are in fact no portraits more uncommunicative than these".

Richard Verdi. "Tübingen: Cézanne." Burlington Magazine 135 (1993), p. 296, fig. 53.

Walter Feilchenfeldt in Götz Adriani. Cézanne: Gemälde. Exh. cat., Kunsthalle Tübingen. Cologne, 1993, p. 310 n. 35, erroneously states that it was shown at the Galerie Paul Cassirer, Berlin in 1909.

Michael Kimmelman. "At the Met with Elizabeth Murray: Looking for the Magic in Painting." New York Times (October 21, 1994), p. C28, ill. (installation photo), quotes Murray's interpretation of the relationship between Cézanne and his wife based on the "'mixture of fear and love'" and "'uncertainty'" in this picture.

Isabelle Cahn. Paul Cézanne. [English ed., 1995]. Paris, 1995, p. 81, ill. (color), dates it 1890–94.

Françoise Cachin. "Un génie indéfinissable." Connaissance des arts 521 (1995), pp. 48–49, ill. (color), dates it 1893–95.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 467, ill.

Michael Kimmelman. "At the Met with Roy Lichtenstein: Disciple of Color and Line, Master of Irony." New York Times (March 31, 1995), p. C27.

Isabelle Cahn. "Cézanne portraitiste." Dossier de l'art no. 25 (September–October 1995), p. 44, ill. p. 45 (color), calls it “Madame Cézanne au fauteuil jaune” and dates it 1893–95; describes it as the most finished of the series.

Karen Wilkin. "Cézanne at the Grand Palais." New Criterion 14 (December 1995), p. 15.

Joseph J. Rishel in Cézanne. Exh. cat., Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris. Philadelphia, 1996, pp. 274, 276, 399–400, no. 167, ill. (color) [French ed., Paris, 1995], dates it 1893–95; argues that although the setting appears to be 15, quai d'Anjou, where Cézanne lived from 1888–90, its similarity to "Woman with a Coffeepot" (about 1895; Musée d'Orsay, Paris; V574, R781) suggests a later date; calls it the most ambitious portrait of Madame Cézanne; reproduces two images of the curtain depicted in this picture: a watercolor (private collection; V1124, RWC 296) and an oil study (Abegg Foundation, Riggisberg; V747, R654), both dated 1888–90.

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, 338, 340, 423, 427, 563, 568, 573, no. 655, colorpl. 25; vol. 2, p. 221, fig. 655, calls it "Madame Cézanne au fauteuil jaune" and dates it 1888–90; illustrates a pencil sketch of two hearth implements seen on the left of this painting [Adrien Chappuis, "The Drawings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné," Greenwich, Conn., 1973, no. 954].

Richard Shone. "Cézanne." Burlington Magazine 138 (May 1996), p. 340, fig. 39 (color), erroneously places it in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Isabelle Cahn in Cézanne. Exh. cat., Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris. Philadelphia, 1996, p. 430 n. 6 [French ed., Paris, 1995], lists it among thirteen paintings depicting the same curtain, including "Still Life with Curtain and Flowered Pitcher" (about 1899; Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; V731, R846).

John Golding. "Under Cézanne's Spell." New York Review of Books 43 (January 11, 1996), pp. 46–47, ill. (color).

Karen Wilkin. "Monsieur Pellerin's Collection." New Criterion 14 (April 1996), p. 22, calls it "Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Armchair" and dates it 1893–95.

Michael Kimmelman. "At the Met with Wayne Thiebaud: A Little Weirdness Can Help an Artist." New York Times (August 23, 1996), p. C25.

Françoise Cachin in Cézanne. Exh. cat., Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris. Philadelphia, 1996, pp. 170, 346, 403 [French ed., Paris, 1995], compares its composition, pose, and handling to "Woman with a Coffeepot" (about 1895; Musée d'Orsay, Paris; V574, R781) [see Ref. Rishel 1996].

Görel Cavalli-Björkman in Cézanne i blickpunkten. Exh. cat., Nationalmuseum. Stockholm, 1997, p. 41, under no. 6, ill.

Richard Shiff. "La touche de Cézanne: entre vision impressionniste et vision symboliste." Cézanne aujourd'hui. Paris, 1997, p. 119, fig. 30 (color), dates it 1893–95.

Katharina Schmidt in Cézanne, Picasso, Braque: Der Beginn des kubistischen Stillebens. Ed. Katharina Schmidt. Exh. cat., Kunstmuseum Basel. Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany, 1998, p. 33 n. 36, dates it 1888–90.

Michael Kimmelman. Portraits: Talking with Artists at the Met, the Modern, the Louvre and Elsewhere. New York, 1998, pp. 20–21, 94, 163, ill. [text similar to Kimmelman 1994, 1995, 1996].

Furuta Hirotoshi in Cézanne and Japan. Exh. cat., Yokohama Museum of Art. Tokyo, 1999, p. 203 n. 15, pp. 209–11, n. 17.

Christina Feilchenfeldt in Cézanne: Finished, Unfinished. Exh. cat., Kunstforum Wien. Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany, 2000, p. 168, fig 2, calls it "Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair" and dates it 1888–90; considers it the last of the series because it is the most developed, spatially abstract, and richly executed.

John McCoubrey in Eliza E. Rathbone George T. M. Shackelford. Impressionist Still Life. Exh. cat., Phillips Collection, Washington. New York, 2001, p. 36, fig. 31.

Jill Berk Jiminez in Dictionary of Artists' Models. Ed. Jill Berk Jiminez and Joanna Banham. London, 2001, p. 189.

Mary Tompkins Lewis. "The Path to Les Lauves: A History of Cézanne's Studios." Atelier Cézanne. [Aix-en-Provence], 2002, p. 21, fig. 24 (color detail).

Susan Sidlauskas. "Emotion, Color, Cézanne (The Portraits of Hortense)." Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 3 (Autumn 2004) [http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/67-autumn04/autumn04article/299-emotion-color-cezanne-the-portraits-of-hortense], mistakenly calls it "Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair".

Young-Paik Chun. "Melancholia and Cézanne's Portraits: Faces beyond the Mirror." Psychoanalysis and the Image: Transdisciplinary Perspectives. Ed. Griselda Pollock. Malden, Mass., 2006, pp. 95–96, 101, 109, fig. 4.2, calls it "Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair" and dates it 1893–95.

Susan Alyson Stein in The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. New York, 2007, pp. 113, 186–87, no. 79, ill. (color and black and white).

Susan Alyson Stein in Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800–1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, pp. 129, 221, no. 118, ill. (color and black and white).

Tamar Garb. The Painted Face: Portraits of Women in France 1814–1914. New Haven, 2007, pp. 139, 142, 145–46, 150, 153, 157–58, 161–63, 167, 169–71, 173, 176–79, 202, 228, 263 n. 58, p. 264 n. 88, p. 267 n. 44, colorpls. 131, 134, 137, 141, 151, 154, 156, 159, 187, 215 (overall and details), discusses the various textures of the painting, its insistent two-dimensionality, and the "painterly pun" of its seemingly three-dimensional apple on the drape, where one would expect to encounter a decorative two-dimensional surface; citing Rilke 1907, states that female visitors to the Salon d'Automne of 1907 would place themselves next to the painting to contrast their own beauty with the "hideousness of the painting"; discusses Maurice Merleau-Ponty's interpretation of the portrait as a "lived perspective"; notes the blank expression and mask-like physiognomy of the face as well as her austere hairstyle with a "boyish" central parting and an overall androgynous appearance; remarks on the lack of jewelry or other feminine accoutrements as well as the rigid verticality of the chair that fights any organic, curving forms; discusses the "appley" presence of Hortense and the drape's apple in this regard; conjoins her sexual indeterminacy with that of his late bathers; notes that Picasso had seen it in the 1907 retrospective exhibition at the Salon d'Automne and that the pose of his "Woman with a Fan" (1908, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg) is reminiscent of Hortense's; confusing it with "Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Armchair" (1888/90, Art Institute of Chicago), mistakenly states that Matisse saw it in May 1913 and reworked it in his own "Portrait" (1913, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg).

Ruth Butler. Hidden in the Shadow of the Master: The Model-Wives of Cézanne, Monet, and Rodin. New Haven, 2008, pp. 72, 74, 76, ill. p. 75, debates whether the red dress was Hortense or Paul Cézanne's idea, noting her interest in fashion but his having bragged to Pissarro that only he knew how to paint a real red (citing Pissarro's letter to his son Lucien of January 20, 1896); calls it the most ambitious and complex of the red dress series of portraits of Hortense; notes the rose in her hands and the heavy flowered curtain pulled back with a swag give the portrait a sense of formality, as in Baroque portraits, as does the use of black- and gold-toned framing elements; contrasts the use of these elements with the composition's destabilized perspective and Hortense's deeply shadowed face with irregular eyes, which lend the painting a new dynamic tension that would become central to his late style.

Pavel Machotka. Cézanne: The Eye and the Mind. Marseilles, 2008, vol. 1, unpaginated, no. 256, ill. (color); vol. 2, p. 170, ill., as "Madame Cézanne au fauteuil jaune"; dates it about 1888–90.

Richard Shiff in Cézanne and Beyond. Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 2009, pp. 59–60, 62, 67, ill. (color), discusses the "aesthetic animation" of the sitter's hands in this picture, noting "those hands are moving, but by what source of energy?".

Carolyn Lanchner in Cézanne and Beyond. Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, 2009, colorpl. 143, calls it "Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair" and dates it 1893–95.

Susan Sidlauskas. Cézanne's Other: The Portraits of Hortense. Berkeley, 2009, pp. 10, 40–41, 57, 138, 147–48, 174–75, 178–86, 192, 214, 219 n. 7, p. 263 n. 100, colorpl. 10, comments that the common red housedress, which cannot be dated from contemporary fashion illustrations, is the only link between the MMA, Beyeler (V571, R651), Chicago (V572, R653), and São Paulo (V575, R652) portraits; analyzes the pictorially bifurcated body and face in the MMA painting as consistent with Cézanne's "ambivalence about the signs of gender"; reads the right side of the face as a "pictorial grafting" of the artist's masculine features and therefore a surrogate self-portrait.

Caroline Elam in Cézanne and the Past: Tradition and Creativity. Exh. cat., Szépmüvészeti Múzeum. Budapest, 2012, pp. 170, 509 n. 59, notes that Fry reproduced it in discussing a portrait by Cézanne of his wife on view in the 1910 Post-Impressionist exhibition, but states that we do not know with certainty which portrait was on view there.

Alex Danchev. Cézanne: A Life. London, 2012, pp. 173, 175, 273, 411 n. 55, pl. 34 (color).

Raymond Hurtu in Courbet / Cézanne: La vérité en peinture. Ed. Denis Coutagne. Exh. cat., Musée Gustave Courbet, Ornans. Lyons, 2013, p. 108.

T. J. Clark in Modernist Games: Cézanne and His Card Players. Ed. Satish Padiyar. London, 2013, p. 23 [http://courtauld.org.uk/pdf/books-online/modernist-games/Modernist%20Games%20Chapter%201%20-%20TJ%20Clarke%20-%20Double%20Spread.pdf], relates the backdrop to the curtain, wall, and shadow depicted in Cézanne's "The Curtain" (1888–90, Abegg Stiftung, Riggisberg).

Javier Barón in El Greco & la pintura moderna. Ed. Javier Barón. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2014, p. 17, fig. 63 (color).

Leticia Ruiz Gómez in El Greco & la pintura moderna. Ed. Javier Barón. Exh. cat., Museo Nacional del Prado. Madrid, 2014, p. 315.

Charlotte Hale in Dita Amory. Madame Cézanne. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, pp. 55, 57, 61, 67, 69–71, 175 n. 22, p. 176 nn. 39, 43, colorpl. 22, figs. 34 (infrared detail), 35, 36 (color details), states the results of pigment analysis of the picture; notes the artist's use of both linseed and poppy-seed oil in both MMA portraits of Hortense, with a possible addition to the binding medium in this picture; identifies the inclusion of late-stage "floating" contour marks at the sitter's wrists; states that the artist used curtained fabric as a backdrop both here and in "Portrait of Madame Cézanne" (Philadelphia Museum of Art); agrees with most scholars that the MMA picture is the last of the four paintings of Hortense in a red dress and notes that it is the largest portrait ever made of her; comments upon the instability of various elements of the picture, its juxtaposition of passages with differing states of finish, and the difficulty in reading Hortense's expression; indicates extensive wet-into-wet painting technique; suggests that a stroke of impasto on her left thumb from a dried underlayer may indicate that she previously held a flower.

Dita Amory in Dita Amory. Madame Cézanne. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, pp. 17–18, notes that it is very likely that the artist had it in his studio at the same time as the other three portraits of Hortense in a red dress; remarks on its greater formal complexity in comparison to the São Paolo variant and its likely placement as the last in the series.

Ann Dumas in Dita Amory. Madame Cézanne. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, pp. 94–95, 101–2, 104, ill. p. 86 (color detail), presents the historiography of the painting and others from the series.

Hilary Spurling in Dita Amory. Madame Cézanne. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, pp. 157–59, notes that Henri Matisse almost certainly knew it from his frequent visits to Auguste Pellerin's; calls it and the other late portraits of Hortense the "grandest he ever painted of his wife" and notes that they have the "dignified bearing of a court portrait"; compares it to Matisse's "Portrait of Madame Matisse" (State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg), noting Matisse's indebtedness to the high-backed chair, formal clothes, blank stare, and skewed angle of the head from the "Red Dress" series; discusses the difficulty of sitting for both Cézanne and Matisse for these portraits.

Dita Amory and Kathryn Kremnitzer in Dita Amory. Madame Cézanne. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, p. 164, note that Alberto Giacometti made an ink drawing after it (fig. 75).

Kathryn Kremnitzer in Dita Amory. Madame Cézanne. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, pp. 204–5, ill. (color).

Walter Feilchenfeldt, Jayne Warman, and David Nash. The Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings of Paul Cezanne: An Online Catalogue Raisonné. 2014–?, no. 493, ill. (color) [https://www.cezannecatalogue.com/catalogue/entry.php?id=636].

Christopher Lloyd. Paul Cézanne: Drawings and Watercolors. Los Angeles, 2015, p. 120.

Kathryn Calley Galitz. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. New York, 2016, p. 447, no. 396, ill. pp. 400, 447 (color).

Mary Tompkins Lewis. Paul Cézanne: Painting People. Princeton, 2017, pp. 16, 52–54, 87, 90, 92, ill. (color, overall and detail), notes that while she wears a house dress her motionless pose does not suggest domestic activity; discusses the bifurcation of her face.

John Elderfield in John Elderfield Mary Morton and Xavier Rey. Cézanne Portraits. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Princeton, 2017, pp. 25, 27, 38 n. 41, p. 39 n. 95, pp. 109, 133, 137–39, 158, 161, 182, 250, no. 14.4, ill. pp. 132, 141, figs. 47, 49 (color, overall, details, and superimposed image), notes its similarities with Cézanne's portrait of Gustave Geffroy (1895–96, Musée d'Orsay, Paris) and "Woman with a Coffee Pot" and the deliberate staging of all three; holds firm the dating of 1888–90, unlike Rishel 1996, preferring to see its relationship to the two Orsay portraits as a sequential development played out on similar-sized canvases; includes an image of the São Paolo portrait superimposed on The Met's portrait to show that, despite their dissimilar size, the contours of the dress in both are almost identical, suggesting that the figure in The Met's picture may have been traced from the São Paolo portrait; reminds, in this context, that the São Paolo painting has been called a study for The Met's; discusses the bifurcation of the sitter's face.

Jayne Warman in John Elderfield Mary Morton and Xavier Rey. Cézanne Portraits. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Princeton, 2017, p. 240.

Mary Morton in John Elderfield Mary Morton and Xavier Rey. Cézanne Portraits. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Princeton, 2017, p. 126.

John Elderfield in Cézanne portraits. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay. Paris, 2017, p. 24 n. 40, pp. 26–29, 36 n. 94, pp. 119, 149–52, 211, 275, no. 42, ill. p. 155 (color).

Jayne Warman in Cézanne portraits. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay. Paris, 2017, p. 268.

Mary Morton in Cézanne portraits. Exh. cat., Musée d'Orsay. Paris, 2017, p. 143, as "Madame Cézanne au fauteuil jaune".

Alexander Eiling in Cézanne: Metamorphoses. Ed. Alexander Eiling. Exh. cat., Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe, 2017, p. 224.

Carol Armstrong. Cézanne’s Gravity. New Haven, 2018, pp. 181, 184, 218, fig. 93 (color), describes it as the most compositionally elaborate of Cézanne’s "estranging" portraits of his wife.

Guy-Patrice Dauberville Floriane Dauberville. Cezanne: Paul Cezanne chez Bernheim-Jeune. Paris, 2020, vol. 2, p. 628, no. 185, ill. p. 629, as "Femme assise (Madame Cezanne)".

The same room and curtain also appear as the setting for a series of portraits of a boy wearing a red waistcoat (Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Venturi 1936, no. 683; Rewald 1996, no. 656; Museum of Modern Art, New York, V680, R657; and Sammlung E. G. Buerhle, Zurich, V681, R658). Cahn (1996) lists thirteen paintings with this curtain in the background.