The Château des Papes in Avignon

Signac painted Avignon at the end of the day in 1909, looking across the Rhône at the Palace of the Popes on its rock. The palace went up in the 14th century, when the popes had left Rome and ruled from this city. Beside it rises the bell tower of the cathedral, topped by a gilded statue. Low on the water are the surviving arches of the medieval Saint-Bénézet bridge. The stone is laid in pinks and oranges, the river in blues, each colour in its own small square touch of paint. In 1912 the Paris gallery Bernheim-Jeune bought the canvas for 1125 francs, and on 18 April that year the painter bought it back from them for 1425. The state then acquired it from him at that year's Salon des Indépendants, for the Musée du Luxembourg.