Cezanne's Murals Head Home

Three early works by Paul Cézanne that were due to go under the hammer at Sotheby’s in Paris will instead be heading home to the south of France.

The trio of landscape paintings has been acquired by Aix-en-Provence, with the support of the French Ministry of Culture, and will enter the permanent collection of the Musée Granet, which is housed in a building where the artist was a student.

The paintings, originally painted as murals for the Cézanne family home, Jas de Bouffan, were part of the Schlumberger family collection. A late Monet waterlillies paingint that sold for $56,, setting an auction record for any artist in France, was among the other works that found new owners on October 22 via the saleroom.

Jas de Bouffan reopened last year after an extensive renovation, which included the restoration of the studio Cézanne’s father built for his son on an upper floor, and projections of the artist's early works.

Thomas Bompard, Sotheby’s co-head of modern and contemporary art, described the museum acquisition as “a perfect path” that enables the works to return to the place where their story began.

Cézanne and Aix had a fraught relationship during the artist’s lifetime, and his enemies included Henri Pontier, the director of the Musée Granet. Pontier refused Cézanne’s offer of 100 paintings for the museum and declared that none of the artist’s works would enter its collection.