コーヒーポットの女

Cézanne made this around 1895, working as he usually did in near-isolation down in Aix-en-Provence, far from the Paris art world. The sitter is an ordinary woman, probably a servant in his household, and he treats her almost as sternly as the objects beside her. Her folded hands, the columns of her dress, the little coffeepot and the cup with its upright spoon are all built from the same firm planes, so that the woman takes on the solidity of architecture. Nothing about her expression invites you in. Large single-figure portraits like this are uncommon in his work, which runs far more to apples, bathers and the mountain near Aix that he painted over and over.