Portrait of Ambroise Vollard

Painted c.1899 and now at the Petit Palais in Paris, this portrait of Ambroise Vollard is among Cézanne's most significant late figure paintings and is renowned for the patience its creation demanded. Vollard sat for over a hundred sessions at Cézanne's Paris studio, often waiting motionless while the artist worked. Despite this commitment, Cézanne declared the painting unfinished — two small patches on Vollard's hands remained unpainted; he said that if he put something there without adequate preparation he would have to repaint the entire canvas. Vollard was Cézanne's primary commercial champion, having given him his first major Paris solo exhibition in 1895.

Vollard's dark suit is rendered in deep blue-black passages that give the figure a massive, block-like presence. The face and hands are built with the characteristic overlapping colour planes — ochre, rose, pale grey — of Cézanne's late portraiture. Two small patches on the hands were deliberately left unpainted; Cézanne declared that if he put something there without adequate preparation he would have to repaint the whole canvas.