Links

Artist: Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) (73)

Period: 19th century (9229)

Type: oil paint (473)

Keywords
cards (10) | genre (380) | men (832) | sports and games (754) | sportsmen and sportswomen (227)

Image sets with this image: Art and Identity |Manet & Cezanne |en exposicion 3 |Brilliant Club

The Card Players

1892-96

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

Oil on canvas

Depth: 9.5 cm ( frame ); Height: 90.5 cm ( frame ); Width: 102 cm ( frame ); Height: 60 cm ( canvas ); Width: 73 cm ( canvas );

Acquisition (source, method, date)
Courtauld, Samuel; gift; 1932
P.1932.SC.57

About this work
Cézanne became interested in depicting labourers playing cards in the autumn of 1890. During the 1890s he completed five paintings of this subject. Here, the composition is refined down to two men seated across a table in undefined surroundings. The players face each other but are immersed in the ritual of the game.

Farm workers from the estate of Cézanne’s father posed for the two figures. They are the human equivalents of the painter’s views of Mount Saint Victoire: timeless, monumental and resolutely Provençal. (Permanent collection label)

Copyright: © The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London