  About the Artwork
  
  
  Paul Cézanne painted over two dozen portraits of his wife, Hortense Fiquet, whom he first met as a nineteen-year-old model in 1869. She eventually became Cézanne’s most frequent portrait subject, enduring a famously difficult process of posing for the artist, which took numerous sittings and required absolute stillness for many hours.   
	


 
	


In this portrait, Hortense is recognizable, but her features are significantly altered by an exaggerated hooked nose, tightly pursed lips, and receding chin. Her hair, austerely pulled up and parted in the center, follows closely the rounded outline of her head, framing a narrow forehead. The truncated sleeves of the dress cover Hortense’s disproportionally shortened arms. The impression that her body is strangely contracted is amplified by her surroundings: the towering mass of a thick drapery behind her on the left and the tear-drop motif wallpaper to the right. Hortense and the background are composed of layers of pigments as well as areas that appear unresolved. The driving force behind the portrait appears to be the construction of the image through form and color, following, in Cézanne’s words, “a new and original logic.” Yet, the sitter’s apparent emotional withdrawal also conveys a sense of psychological tension.
  
  
  Title
  Madame Cézanne
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1886 - 1887
  
  Artist
  Paul Cézanne
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1839-1906
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  French
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 39 5/8 × 32 inches (100.6 × 81.3 cm)
  Framed: 49 1/4 × 41 3/4 × 3 inches (125.1 × 106 × 7.6 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  European Modern Art to 1970
  
  
  Credit
  Bequest of Robert H. Tannahill
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  70.160
  
  
  Copyright
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