Woman in Front of a Still Life by Cézanne

Gauguin painted Woman in Front of a Still Life by Cézanne in 1890, incorporating a clearly recognisable Cézanne still life hung on the wall behind the female sitter — a deliberate act of homage and appropriation. Gauguin owned several Cézanne paintings, including a version of his favourite, which he took to Tahiti and refused to sell throughout his life. By embedding the Cézanne in his own composition, Gauguin acknowledged his debt while also staking his own ground: the sitter's dark, frontal presence contrasts with the luminous complexity of the Cézanne behind her, creating a meditation on the relationship between figure and still life.

The Cézanne still life in the background is rendered with careful fidelity to its characteristic modulated brushwork. The foreground figure is treated more flatly and boldly, her dark dress a strong contrasting presence. The juxtaposition of handling styles — Cézanne's optical complexity against Gauguin's emerging Synthetism — is itself the painting's formal argument.