Still Life with Water Jug

Still Life with Water Jug from 1892, at the National Gallery in London, represents Cézanne's mature investigation of the ceramic vessel alongside fruit. The National Gallery acquired this as part of its gradual expansion into nineteenth-century French painting, where Cézanne's central importance was well established by the time of acquisition. The water jug is a different form from his typical ginger pot or wine bottle — taller, with a more prominent handle, its opening wide. These differences in shape gave Cézanne different formal problems to resolve, and he appears to have chosen his objects partly for the specific formal challenges they presented.

The water jug's tall, handled form creates vertical emphasis within the composition, contrasting with the lower horizontal spread of fruit on the cloth. The jug's blue-grey ceramic glaze requires different color modulation than the warmer tones of fruit — cool strokes that describe its cylindrical form.