The Painter's Father, Louis-Auguste Cézanne

An older man sits, legs crossed and head bowed, absorbed in his reading. This is Cézanne’s father, Louis-Auguste. He was probably in his early sixties when his son painted this portrait directly onto an alcove wall in the salon of Jas de Bouffan, the country residence outside Aix-en-Provence that Louis-Auguste had bought in 1859.A photograph said to have been taken in 1905 shows the portrait still in place, flanked by four paintings of the seasons (Petit Palais, Paris).