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Paul Cézanne Boy in a Red Vest 1888-90

  • MoMA, Floor 5, 501 The Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Galleries

Cézanne rarely hired professional models, but he did so for this work, whose subject is an Italian boy named Michelangelo di Rosa. It is one in a series of four paintings and two watercolors the artist made of di Rosa wearing a red vest. The painting’s first owner, the artist Claude Monet, referred to it as the best picture he owned, and it inspired him to declare that “Cézanne is the greatest of us all.” Nearly half of the Cézanne paintings in MoMA’s collection were originally part of Bliss’s 1934 donation. Boy in a Red Vest is temporarily on view while the other Cézanne paintings given by Bliss travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a special exhibition.

Gallery label from 2022
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
32 x 25 5/8" (81.2 x 65 cm)
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David Rockefeller. Conservation was made possible by the Bank of America Art Conservation Project.
Object number
190.1955
Department
Painting and Sculpture

Installation views

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Provenance Research Project

This work is included in the Provenance Research Project, which investigates the ownership history of works in MoMA's collection.

Ambroise Vollard, Paris
Claude Monet, Giverny (1895)
Michel Monet, Giverny
Paul Rosenberg, Paris
Mrs. A. Chester Beatty, London
Paul Rosenberg, Paris and New York
David and Peggy Rockefeller, New York (June 1955)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1955). Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David Rockefeller

Per Feilchenfeldt, Walter, Jayne Warman, and David Nash. "Le Garçon au gilet rouge”, 1888-90 (FWN 495)." The Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings of Paul Cezanne: An Online Catalogue Raisonné. https://www.cezannecatalogue.com/catalogue/entry.php?id=638 (retrieved Mar 21, 2022).

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