Achille Emperaire

Cézanne painted his friend Achille Emperaire around 1868, years before anyone spoke of Impressionism, when he was still a rough young provincial trying to force his way into the Paris Salon. Emperaire was a fellow painter from Aix, physically disabled and small in stature, with a large head, and Cézanne softens none of it. He seats him in a huge armchair, seen straight on, and letters the name across the top like a royal title. The set-up openly mocks Ingres' portrait of Napoleon enthroned, down to the pun buried in Emperaire and emperor. The Salon jury rejected the canvas in 1870. The two men had met over a decade earlier in a Paris studio and stayed close friends for years afterward.