Still Life with Apples and Peaches

Paul Cézanne

Oil on canvas

National Gallery of Art

In this late masterwork, Cézanne arranges a dozen rust-orange and golden-yellow apples and peaches on a white plate, flanked by a flowered white pitcher, a fluted bowl, and richly patterned drapery on a wood tabletop that tilts dramatically toward the viewer. Working from his studio props—the same patterned cloth, pitcher, and table he returned to repeatedly—Cézanne built each composition as a rigorous investigation of form, color, and spatial relationships rather than a record of optical fact. Born in Aix-en-Provence in 1839, Cézanne developed a Post-Impressionist practice rooted in the patient, methodical observation of motifs from multiple viewpoints simultaneously, resulting in a deliberate subversion of traditional perspective. This painting stands as one of his most resolved late still lifes, catalogued by John Rewald in the authoritative catalogue raisonné and held today in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.