Portrait of Madame Cézanne with Loosened Hair

Portrait of Madame Cézanne with Loosened Hair (or Madame Cézanne with Unbound Hair) is an oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Paul Cézanne, variously dated from the mid-1870s to the early 1890s. Although the model, his wife Hortense Fiquet, was not supportive and did not understand or take an interest in her husband's work, this is one of forty-four portraits in which she sat for him from 1869, a period during which she progressed from mistress, to wife, to ex-wife. Something of a socialite, Cézanne latterly found Fiquet often fickle and shallow, and once remarked, "My wife only cares for Switzerland and lemonade". The sensitivity and depth ascribed to her in this work is likely drawn from his own personality and projected onto her image.

Portrait of Madame Cézanne with Loosened Hair

Portrait of Madame Cézanne with Loosened Hair (or Madame Cézanne with Unbound Hair) is an oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Paul Cézanne, variously dated from the mid-1870s to the early 1890s. Although the model, his wife Hortense Fiquet, was not supportive and did not understand or take an interest in her husband's work, this is one of forty-four portraits in which she sat for him from 1869, a period during which she progressed from mistress, to wife, to ex-wife. Something of a socialite, Cézanne latterly found Fiquet often fickle and shallow, and once remarked, "My wife only cares for Switzerland and lemonade". The sensitivity and depth ascribed to her in this work is likely drawn from his own personality and projected onto her image.