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The Pigeon Tower at Bellevue
by Paul Cezanne
About the Artwork
Paul Cezanne painted this composition in three horizontal planes: the azure blue of the sky; the luminous white of the tower and the farmyard buildings; and the burnt-orange shade of the foreground earth, whose color is indicative of the iron-rich soil of Provence. The shimmering greens of Cezanne’s favorite cypress and olive trees are interspersed across the middle ground. The composition is pared down to its essentials, devoid of extraneous detail; it exemplifies his ambition “to make something solid and enduring, like the art in museums.”
Provenance
1899: Maxime Conil [1822- ?] Aix en Provence, France, brother-in-law of the artist, sold to Ambroise Vollard, December 18, 1899 1899-1922: (Ambroise Vollard, Paris, France, January 25, 1922, sold to Ralph M. Coe) 1922: Ralph M. Coe [1882-1959], Cleveland, OH 1922-1935: Mrs. Ralph M. Coe [1891-1966], Cleveland, OH, November 7, 1935, to Knoedler & Co.for sale 1935-1936: (Knoedler & Co., New York, NY, January 6, 1936, work returned to Mr. Ralph M. Coe) 1936: Mr. Ralph M. Coe, Cleveland, OH, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art 1936-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Fifty Years of French Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 29-November 29, 1926). The Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 26-October 4, 1936). Cézanne and Gauguin. The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH (organizer) (November 1-December 13, 1936). Paul Cézanne. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (organizer) (September 1-October 4, 1937). Paul Cézanne. Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR (organizer) (October 8-29, 1937). French Impressionists from Manet to Cezanne. The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (organizer) (May 3-June 2, 1940). The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941). Masterpieces of Painting. Montréal Museum of Fine Arts (organizer) (February 5-March 8, 1942). 19th and 20th Century French Art and Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Loans. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 22-September 1, 1943). A Thousand Years of Landscape: East and West. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (organizer) (October 24-December 9, 1945). French Paintings of the 19th Century. Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (organizer) (November 5-December 9, 1946). Cézanne. Wildenstein & Co. (organizer) (March 26-April 26, 1947). Springtime of Impressionism. Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH (organizer) (April 3-May 2, 1948). French Impressionists. Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (organizer) (May 23-April 19, 1953). Exposition pour commémorer le cinquantenaire de la mort de Cézanne. Pavillon de Vendôme, Aix-en-Provence, France (July 20-August 15, 1956). Masterpieces of World Art from American Museums. National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (organizer) (September 11-October 17, 1976); Kyoto National Museum (November 2-December 5, 1976). Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 16-November 8, 1987). Cézanne and Poussin: The Classical Vision of Landscape. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (organizer) (August 9-October 21, 1990). Cézanne. Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, France (September 26, 1995-January 1, 1996); Tate Britain, London (February 7-April 28, 1996); Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA (May 26-September 1, 1996). Right Under the Sun: Painting in Provence from Classicism to Modernism (1750-1920). Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (organizer) (September 22, 2005-January 8, 2006). Cézanne in Provence. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (organizer) (January 29-May 7, 2006). Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Seoul Art Center, South Korea (December 22, 2006-March 28, 2007); Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, South Korea (April 7-May 20, 2007); Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (June 9-September 16, 2007); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008); Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN (February 15-June 1, 2008); Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT (June 22-September 21, 2008); The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (October 12, 2008-January 18, 2009). Lend-Back: Painting the Modern Garden. Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH (organizer) (October 1, 2015-April 30, 2016).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Paul Cezanne (French, 1839–1906)
- Date
- 1890
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Dimensions
- Framed: 95.5 x 113 x 7 cm (37 5/8 x 44 1/2 x 2 3/4 in.); Unframed: 65.6 x 81.5 cm (25 13/16 x 32 1/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- The James W. Corrigan Memorial
- Accession no.
- 1936.19
More by Paul Cezanne in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00009143
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