Venturi assigns this canvas to a group of paintings dated 1879-1882 that have as their subject various objects depicted before a background of leaf- patterned wallpaper. In his view, the wallpaper might have been found either in Cezanne's home at Melun, where he lived in 1879 and 1880, or at Rue de l'Ouest, where the painter lived in 1881 and 1882. Later researchers have tried to correct the practice of assembling the paintings into groups, con- cluding that the wallpaper with geometric or leaf patterns shown in Cezanne's works of the time could have been in many places, even in Aix. It has been the tendency of Sterling, Gowing, Riviere, and others to narrow the time period in which the still life pictures, which include the wallpaper motif, were painted. The present canvas was most probably painted around 1879-1880.

Cezanne located the same objects in various ways in front of various types of wallpaper. A metal milk jug, decanter, painted bowl, and fruit are also shown in other compositions (see Venturi, nos. 338 and 340). No. 338 is most directly related to the Hermitage painting, as it also has a crumpled napkin in the center of the composition and a milk jug at the left, with leaf- patterned wallpaper in the background.

Hermitage Museum, inv. no. 9026

Provenance:

H. Havemeyer collection, New York; 1894, Durand-Ruel Gallery, New York;

1895, Durand-Ruel Gallery, Paris;

1903, Shchukin collection, Moscow;

1918, First Museum of Modern Western Painting, Moscow;

1923, Museum of Modern Western Art, Moscow;

since 1948, Hermitage, Leningrad. 

45 x 55 cm