The Buffet, Paul Cézanne (1877)
Cézanne spent most of his life in the town where he was born, Aix-en-Provence. The Budapest still-life was made in the coastal town of Estaque near Aix and Marseille, where Cézanne moved several times.
When the picture was painted in the mid-1870s Cézanne was friends with the most important Impressionist painters: Pissarro, Monet and Renoir. At this time, the palette of his earlier so-called Baroque-style paintings gave way to lighter colours, but rather than the Impressionists' method of painting he was preoccupied with capturing what is lasting and permanent.
Discover more Old Masters in the following collections: