Portrait of the Artist (recto); Fragment of a Landscape Study (verso)

The highly significant work, Portrait of the Artist (recto); Fragment of a Landscape Study (verso) by Paul Cézanne, executed in graphite between 1875 and 1885, provides a direct, intimate insight into the artist’s process during a transformative period of his career. The classification of this piece as a Drawing emphasizes the preparatory nature and the raw immediacy of the medium. The recto features a highly concentrated portrait of a man, likely a self-portrait, rendered with the heavy, defining pencil strokes characteristic of Cézanne’s studies.

Cézanne utilized graphite not merely for preliminary sketching, but as a tool to explore structure, volume, and mass, foreshadowing his revolutionary techniques in oil painting. The focused intensity of the subject’s gaze in this specific portrait exemplifies the psychological weight the artist often imposed on his human subjects. These portraits became central to Cézanne’s investigation into representing reality through simplified geometric planes, marking his pivotal transition toward Post-Impressionism.

The reverse side of the sheet bears a quick, abstract fragment of a landscape study, demonstrating the artist’s dual focus on natural forms and the human figure throughout this decade. The economical handling of the landscape contrasts sharply with the density of the Portrait of the Artist (recto), yet both sides illustrate Cézanne's methodical approach to composition. This double-sided work, vital for understanding Cézanne’s stylistic evolution, is held in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.