Stillleben mit Wasserkrug

Cezanne left this still life unfinished, and that is exactly why it rewards a long look. The blue water jug and the fruit on the plain table were props he came back to through the 1890s, arranging apples and pears the way another painter might pose a model. Because he stopped partway, you can see bare canvas showing through and the way he built the forms up in patient patches of colour rather than drawing an outline and filling it in. He worked slowly, over many sittings, and fruit had the advantage that it held still, though it also rotted before he was done. The picture reached London through a Dutch collector, Frank Stoop, who left it to the nation in 1933, and it now hangs at the National Gallery on loan from Tate.