The lawyer (Uncle Dominique)

In April 1866 the Salon jury turned Cézanne down again, and he wrote to the superintendent of fine arts asking for a new exhibition of refused works. That autumn in Aix he painted his mother's brother, Dominique Aubert, about ten times. Dominique was a bailiff, and his nephew kept putting him in costume. In one canvas he is a monk in a white habit. Here he plays a lawyer, in a black robe and cap, one hand raised as if pleading. The paint goes on with a palette knife in thick slabs, plain to see on the face and fingers. The writer Antony Valabrègue, a friend from Aix, wrote that a new portrait of the uncle appeared every afternoon. A year after Cézanne died, this canvas was number one in the 1907 retrospective of his work at the Salon d'Automne.