A valuable Cezanne work has been added to the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, and the museum’s public will be able to see the work of art—with a watercolour on each side—at the exhibition Cezanne to Malevich, open until 13 February.
The Paul Cezanne watercolour was purchased by the museum at Christie’s New York auction late last year. The work of art, which has recently arrived in Hungary, features a view of the Swiss Colombier Castle on one side and a study of a group of trees on the other, the director general of the Museum of Fine Arts said at the press presentation of the work on Thursday.
László Baán added that the purchase of the 1890 painting—as well as the acquisition of the Anthonis van Dyck painting The Wedding Portrait of Princess Mary Henrietta Stuart, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Nude Woman Reclining—was made possible by the support of the Hungarian government.
The Cezanne watercolour, acquired at an American auction for 750,000 dollars (about 227 million Hungarian forints), was acquired in honour of the 150th anniversary of the 1871 state purchase of the Esterházy collection, which is of European rank, and which forms the basis of the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, the Director General noted.
Judit Geskó, curator of the exhibition From Cezanne to Malevich, said that the watercolour on one side of the Cezanne work depicts the Colombier Chateau from a distance.
The painting shows the loose, patchy dissolution that characterises the last two decades of the French master’s career, leaving the paper blank in some places. “This landscape also shows a very interesting completeness in the oeuvre of Cezanne,” Geskó pointed out.
According to Judit Geskó, the group of trees on the other side of the work is also a very typical Cezanne painting, a study of the artist’s work near the castle, which expresses the artist to the maximum even in its incompleteness.
As the curator pointed out, the watercolour has been in private hands for the past 35 years, so very few people have seen it, and now it is an excellent addition to the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts.
However, this is not the only piece of art that has been added to the collection in connection with the exhibition: the Museum of Fine Arts has recently acquired Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart’s Composition No. 212, which can also be seen in the exhibition Cezanne to Malevich, said Judit Geskó.
