Nature morte au compotier

Cezanne painted this around 1879 and 1880, when almost nobody would buy his work. Gauguin bought it. He had been a stockbroker who spent his salary on Impressionist pictures, and he held on to this canvas after the job and the money were gone, carrying it to Copenhagen and back. He called it the apple of his eye and said he would give up his last shirt first. In 1890 he painted a portrait of a woman seated in front of it. Six years later he sold it to the dealer Ambroise Vollard because he needed the cash. In 1900 Maurice Denis painted a group of younger artists gathered around this same still life on an easel in Vollard's shop and called that picture Homage to Cezanne.