Meadow and Farm of Jas de Bouffan

When this was painted, in the mid-1880s, the Jas de Bouffan still belonged to Cézanne's father, Louis-Auguste, a banker in Aix-en-Provence. He had bought the estate in 1859, when it was mostly a working farm of almond, mulberry and olive trees and vines. His son painted it in more than 30 oils. Here the family house is hidden behind the trees, and what we get instead are the outlying farm buildings, a meadow and a grove of chestnuts, all set down in small, sketchy strokes. On 23 October 1886 Louis-Auguste died, and the property passed jointly to the painter and his two sisters. It stayed with them until 1899, when it was sold after their mother's death. The National Gallery of Canada bought this canvas in 1954, and in 2025 it went back to Aix on loan, for an exhibition about the estate at the Musée Granet.