Provencal Manor (Bastide Provençal)
Provenance
[Ambroise Vollard (1867–1939), Paris, by ca. 1935]. [Reid and Lefevre, London, by 1936]; sold to Donald Whyte, London, 24 Mar. 1936. [Bignou Gallery, New York, by 1938]. Nelle E. Mullen, Merion, Penn., by 1938, sold at auction of the Mullen Collection, Freeman Galleries, Philadelphia, 15 Nov. 1967, lot 27, as Le Mas provencal; purchased by Henry Pearlman; Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, after 1974.
Conservator's Note
The composition was executed wet-on-wet, with thin fluid oil paint, handled much like a watercolor.
Critical Perspective
This large house on a plain—its outbuildings and haystacks suggesting the prosperous farming operation of its owners—has a large chimney on one of the pavilions, perhaps from a bakery oven. The fields stretch out behind, rising on sloping hills. Although the painting looks unfinished, it may have reached a point that satisfied Cézanne and beyond which he no longer wished to carry it. His definitions of "finished" and "unfinished" were highly personal and specific to each of his works.