Marie-Hortense Fiquet Cézanne (22 April 1850 – 1922) was a French artists' model. She is best known for her marriage to

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work introduced new modes of representation, influenced avant-garde artistic movements of the early 20th century a ...

and the 27 portraits, mostly in oil, he painted of her between 1869 and the late 1890s.

Life

She was born in Saligney, France on 22 April 1850. In 1869, she met Cézanne at an art school in Paris called Académie Suisse. This art school was used by a number of major artists as a place to meet each other and to paint the models who worked there. Fiquet's main job was as a bookseller or bookbinder, but she combined this with part-time work as a model. They started a relationship and when the

Franco-Prussian War The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 Janua ...

broke out in 1871, they left Paris together for

L'Estaque L'Estaque (; ) is a village in southern France, just west of Marseille. Administratively, it belongs to the commune in France, commune of Marseille. Overview Many artists of the Impressionism, Impressionist and Post-Impressionism, Post-Impression ...

in the south of France. Afraid of offending his father, Louis-Auguste Cézanne, a well-to-do banker, and compromising his allowance, he went to great lengths to conceal his liaison with Fiquet. The existence of their child Paul, born in 1872, was kept from Louis-Auguste for some years.Lindsay Fiquet and Cézanne married on 28 April 1886, in the presence of the artist's parents, though by that time he had publicly said that he no longer had any feelings for her. Described by one scholar as "high-maintenance", Fiquet was to live separately from her husband for much of their married life.Laura Gascoigne
''Carpenter of Colour''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...

, 8 July 2006 After the death of Louis-Auguste Cézanne that same year, Cézanne and his wife separated, the artist moving in with his sister and mother and declaring, "My wife only cares for Switzerland and lemonade". The psychological distance between husband and wife appears to be reflected in the portraits where she gives the impression of being self-absorbed. She eventually settled in Paris. Although he continued to paint his wife until the 1890s, he disinherited her. After her husband's death in 1906, their one child, Paul (1872–1947) inherited his father's entire estate. The settlement that Hortense received from her son was squandered through gambling.

In literature

Hortense may have provided inspiration for a character in ''

L'Œuvre ''(The Masterpiece)' is the fourteenth novel in the '' Rougon-Macquart'' series by Émile Zola. It was first serialized in the periodical '' Gil Blas'' beginning in December 1885 before being published in novel form by Charpentier in 1886. Th ...

'', an

Émile Zola Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, ; ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of Naturalism (literature), naturalism, and an important contributor to ...

novel which appeared in serial form the year before the Cézannes' marriage. Zola was a friend to Cézanne from their schooldays, although the novel caused some tension between them. In the novel, Christine, also a model, marries a painter. However the book is not biographical in the strict sense; while the fictional painter bears some relation to Cézanne, Christine poses nude, a far cry from Cézanne's chaste portraits of Fiquet, and more reminiscent of '' Le déjeuner sur l'herbe'' by

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French Modernism, modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism (art movement), R ...

.This painting was posed by Manet's wife Suzanne.

Gallery

File:Madame Cézanne dans un fauteuil rouge, par Paul Cézanne.jpg, ''Madame Cézanne in a red armchair'', 1877.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...

File:Paul Cézanne - Madame Cézanne au jardin.jpg, ''Madame Cézanne in a Garden'', 1879-1880,

Musée de l'Orangerie The Musée de l'Orangerie () is an art gallery of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings located in the west corner of the Tuileries Garden next to the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The museum is most famous as the permanent home of ...

File:Paul Cézanne 123.jpg, ''Portrait of Mme Cézanne'', c. 1885, Berggruen Museum File:Paul Cézanne - Portrait of Madame Cézanne.jpg, ''Portrait of Madame Cézanne'', 1885,

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

File:Cézanne-MadameCézanne-Aix.jpg, ''Portrait of Marie-Hortense Fiquet,'' 1885–1887,

Musée Granet The Musée Granet is a museum in the quartier Mazarin, Aix-en-Provence, France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French G ...

File:Paul Cézanne Madame Cézanne.JPG, ''Madame Cézanne,'' c. 1886,

Oil on canvas Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or copper for several centuries. ...

, The Detroit Institute of Arts File:Paul Cezanne Portrait de Madame Cezanne.jpg, ''Portrait of Madame Cézanne'', (1885–1887) Barnes collection File:Paul Cézanne 132.jpg, '' Portrait of Madame Cézanne with Loosened Hair'', c. 1883 – 1887,

File:Paul Cézanne - Madame Cézanne in Blue - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Madame Cézanne in Blue'', 1890,

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 5,000 years of history with nearly 80,000 works from six continents. Follo ...

File:Paul Cézanne 125.jpg, ''Madame Cézanne in the Greenhouse'', 1891–1892.

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

File:Paul Cézanne 124.jpg, ''Portrait of Mme Cézanne in a yellow armchair'', 1893–1895 File:Paul Cézanne - Madame Cézanne with Green Hat (Madame Cézanne au chapeau vert) - BF141 - Barnes Foundation.jpg, ''Woman in a Green Hat. Madame Cézanne'', 1894–1895.

Barnes Foundation The Barnes Foundation is an art collection and educational institution promoting the appreciation of art and horticulture. Originally in Merion, the art collection moved in 2012 to a new building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, ...

File:GUGG Madame Cézanne.jpg , ''Madame Cézanne'', 1885–87.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Street (Manhattan), 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts a permanent coll ...

References

Sources

* Garb, Tamar. ''The Painted Face, Portraits of Women in France 1814–1914''. Yale University Press, 2007. * Lindsay, Jack. ''Cézanne: His Life and Art''. Greenwich, Connecticut: New York Graphic Society, 1969

External links