Image: public domain, courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Card Players
Three farmhands from Provence play cards at a small table, while a fourth man with a pipe stands and watches. Cézanne painted five pictures of card players, and this is the first of them.
🎧 Audio guide available in the 3D museum
Did you know?
- Look for the four clay pipes hanging on the wall behind the players.
- X-rays show that Cézanne redrew the outlines of the figures, the table and the chairs several times.
- Cézanne was in his fifties when he began this series about card players.
- A much larger version, with more figures, hangs in the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia.
- A later version with only two players was reportedly sold to Qatar in 2011 for about 250 million dollars.
About the artist
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) was born in Aix-en-Provence in southern France and divided his working life between Paris and his beloved Provence.
Often called the father of modern art, he is famous for still lifes of apples, The Card Players and many views of Mont Sainte-Victoire.
As a schoolboy in Aix he became best friends with the future writer Émile Zola, and he once declared that he wanted to astonish Paris with an apple.
More works
The Basket of ApplesPaul Cézanne, c. 1893
The BedroomVincent van Gogh, 1889
A Sunday on La Grande JatteGeorges Seurat, 1884–86
At the Moulin RougeHenri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892–95
Fishing in Spring, the Pont de Clichy (Asnières)Vincent van Gogh, 1887
Self-PortraitVincent van Gogh, 1889
RosesVincent van Gogh, 1890
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