A classic example of Cézanne's mature style, this landscape is set in the south ridge of Mont Sainte-Victoire, the artist's favorite motif, near his home in southern France.

Although Cézanne was influenced by his outdoor studies with Camille Pissarro, he did not share the Impressionists' fascination with the changing conditions of the landscape. Seeking instead the basic structure underlying nature, Cézanne built compositions of carefully ordered geometric forms. He converted the rugged terrain of Provence into a network of horizontal bands, punctuated by vertical accents and the cubic form of the isolated farmhouse. The resulting image echoes the enduring presence of Cézanne's mountain.

Probably from the artist to (Ambroise Vollard, Paris). {1} To Henri Bernstein [1876-1953] by 1910;{2} (sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 1911);{3} Auguste Pellerin [1852-1929].{4} Probably via (Ambroise Vollard, Paris) and (Paul Cassirer, Berlin) to Gottlieb Friedrich Reber [1880-1959] by 1918;{5} sold to (Marie Harriman, New York) by 1936;{6} purchased by Caroline Marmon Fesler, Indianapolis, for the John Herron Art Institute, now Indianapolis Museum of Art, in 1945 (45.194).{7}

{1} See John Rewald, The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné, vol. 1, 1996, no. 573 cites the Vollard stocknumber 3879[A].
{2} See Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, Exposition Cézanne, 10-22 January 1910, no. 7, listing the owner as "H. Bernstein."
{3} See auction catalogue, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 7 June 1911, no. 9 (ill.);
{4} An annotated copy of the auction catalogue at the Frick Art Reference Library gives the purchaser as "Pellerin."
{5} A label with the Vollard stocknumber 5155 appears on the painting's stretcher. On Reber's ownership, see Peter Kropmanns and Uwe Fleckner, "Von Kontinentaler Bedeutung: Gottlieb Friedrich Reber und seine Sammlung," in Andrea Pophanken and Felix
Billeter, eds., Die Moderne und ihre Sammler, Berlin 2001, p. 352. A photo of the interior of Reber's apartment, dated to 1918, shows this painting hanging on the wall.
{6} Reber established connections with Harriman beginning in 1931 when she acquired Rousseau's Rendezvous in the Forest, NGA, from him. Based on the stocknumbers of several works that followed this path into the NGA's collection, IMA's painting was acquired by Harriman closer to 1936; information courtesy of Nancy Yeide, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
{7} IMA Temporary Receipt No. 4689.