Madame Cézanne in a Red Armchair

In April 1886, C�zanne married Hortense Fiquet in Aix. The reason why, after so long, he decided to make his relationship with Hortense official, despite not having loved her for a long time, was probable to ensure that their son Paul, now aged fourteen, did not suffer the stigma of having unmarried parents.

Hortense did not share C�zanne’s passion for painting and literature, and she preferred the bright lights of Paris to the solitude of the Proven�al countryside. But she seems to have possessed huge reserves of patience and posed for the artist in endless sittings. He painted over forty portraits of her, mostly showing her as a severe and reserved-looking woman with hard, angular features, such as the present painting.