Madame Cézanne (Hortense Fiquet, 1850–1922) in the Conservatory

Cézanne painted his wife Hortense Fiquet in more than forty canvases over three decades, and this portrait of 1891 is among the most monumental of the series. The deliberately simplified forms and the calm immobility of the sitter reflect his lifelong search for a structure beneath appearances, marking him as the crucial bridge between Impressionism and the art of the twentieth century.