Artwork
Still Life with Apples and Peaches
Still Life with Apples and Peaches is an oil painting by the Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne. It dates from 1905 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
" The work thus stands less as an allegorical image than as a concentrated study of fruit as a subject for formal and pictorial inquiry.
Still Life with Apples and Peaches is a late Cézanne still life whose subject is restricted to two of his most characteristic fruits: apples and peaches, the only items identified in the work's iconographic inventory. By limiting the composition to these fruits, Cézanne reduces the traditional still life to its essentials, treating the apple and peach as vehicles for exploring form, color, and the underlying geometry of nature rather than as carriers of conventional symbolic meaning. The pairing of apples and peaches reflects the artist's longstanding preoccupation with these particular fruits, which he used throughout his career to investigate volume, surface, and the relationship between objects and the space they occupy.
As a representation, the painting exemplifies Cézanne's late still-life practice, in which everyday fruit becomes the means through which he articulates his celebrated ambition to treat nature "by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone." The work thus stands less as an allegorical image than as a concentrated study of fruit as a subject for formal and pictorial inquiry.
Technique & Style
Still Life with Apples and Peaches is executed in oil on canvas, a medium Paul Cézanne used throughout his late career. The painting measures 81 by 100.5 centimeters, a horizontal format suited to the arrangement of fruit across a tabletop. The work belongs to the still life genre and depicts apples and peaches, subjects Cézanne returned to repeatedly in his final years.
The handling reflects his characteristic constructive brushwork, building form through parallel, structured strokes of pigment rather than smooth blending. The canvas support and oil medium allow for the dense, layered application that gives the fruit and drapery their tactile presence. The painting is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where it has been preserved since its 1959 donation.
History & Provenance
The painting was executed by Paul Cezanne in 1905 as an oil on canvas work measuring roughly 81 × 100.5 cm. Its early ownership placed it with Parisian dealer Ambroise Vollard before the American photographer Edward Steichen acquired it in 1912 for the couple Eugene and Agnes Ernst Meyer, who displayed it in their New York and Washington residences. The Meyers later loaned the piece to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a 1921 exhibition, and in 1959 they gifted it to the National Gallery of Art, where it remains in the collection. No documentation indicates a specific commissioning request.
Still Life with Apples and Peaches is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The work entered the museum's holdings in 1959 as a gift from Eugene and Agnes Ernst Meyer. Prior to this acquisition, the painting was purchased in 1912 by photographer Edward Steichen on behalf of the Meyers from the Paris dealer Ambroise Vollard. Regarding its exhibition history, the canvas was lent by the Meyers for display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1921.
Overview
Paul Cézanne's Still Life with Apples and Peaches, an oil on canvas created around 1905, exemplifies his late period engagement with the still life genre. This painting features a modest arrangement of fruit, including apples and peaches, situated on a simple wooden surface. Some pieces rest within a bowl, while others appear to have rolled to the table's edge, creating a dynamic yet balanced composition characteristic of his work.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Paul Cézanne ( say-ZAN, UK also siz-AN, US also say-ZAHN; French: ; Occitan: Pau Cesana; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French Post-Impressionist painter whose work introduced new modes of representation,…
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