The Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings of Paul Cezanne
An Online Catalogue Raisonné under the Direction of Société Paul Cezanne
(Formerly directed by Walter Feilchenfeldt, Jayne Warman and David Nash)
FWN 598
Le Christ aux limbes
c.1869
Alternate titles: Christ; Christ in Limbo; Christus in der Vorhölle, Wanddekoration im Jas de Bouffan; Christus und Magdalena; La descente aux limbes; La Ressurection de Lazare; Lazare; Le Christ; Raising of Lazarus; Résurrection de Lazare; Wandbild in Jas de Bouffan
Rewald (145): c.1869; Venturi revised: c.1867; Venturi (84): 1864–68; Rivière: c.1867–68; Cooper: 1865–66; Gowing: 1867 or 1868 (Burlington) and c.1867 (London); Ratcliffe: 1869 or later
Mural transferred to canvas
66 1/8 x 39 9/16 in. (168 x 100.5 cm)
Provenance
Exhibition History
Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, Cézanne, May 20–October 11, 1936, no. 7, as Le Christ aux limbes, lent by M/M Lecomte; shown for the first time.
Orangerie, Paris, Hommage à Cézanne, July 2–October 17, 1954, no. 11, lent by private collection, Paris.
Royal Academy of Arts, London, Cézanne: The Early Years 1859–1872, April 22–August 21, 1988, no. 32, ill. with a photograph of Le Christ aux limbes et la Madeleine before the painting was cut; see also p. 13 (p. 25 French ed.) fig. 10. Traveled to: Musée d'Orsay, Cézanne: les années de jeunesse 1859-1872, Paris, September 19, 1988–January 1, 1989; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., January 29–April 30, 1989.
Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, Le décor impressionniste: aux sources des nymphéas, March 2–July 11, 2022, no. 30, ill., p. 62.
Published References
Denis, Maurice. Théories, 1890–1910, du symbolisme et de Gauguin vers un nouvel ordre classique. Paris: Bibliothèque de l'Occident, 1912, pp. 239–40.
Burger, Fritz. Cézanne und Hodler. Munich: Delphin Verlag, 1913, pl. 186, as Christus und Magdalena, JW: Ill. larger than v. (includes v. 86).
Le Curieux. "Quatre panneaux décoratifs de Cézanne." La Renaissance de l'art français et des industries de luxe (Paris), vol. 1, no. 2 (April 1918), p. 34, as Christ.
Coquiot, Gustave. Paul Cézanne. Paris: Ollendorf, 1919, pp. 41, 214, as Christ ressuscitant Lazare.
Vollard, Ambroise. Paul Cézanne. Munich: Kurt Wolfe Verlag, 1921, ill. opp. p. 22, as Christus in der Vorhölle, Wanddekoration im Jas de Bouffan, dated circa 1863.
Gasquet, Joachim. Cézanne. Paris: Les Editions Bernheim-Jeune, 1921, p. 104, pl. p. 104, as Le Christ.
Meier-Graefe, Julius. Cézanne und sein Kreis: ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschichte: mit 171 Tonätzungen und einem Lichtdruck. Munich: R. Piper, 1922, ill. p. 99, as Wandbild in Jas de Bouffan, c. 1868 (illustration includes part of La Douleur).
Rivière, Georges. Le Maître Paul Cézanne. Paris: Librairie Floury, 1923, p. 197, listed, ill. opp. p. 6, and detail p. 165, as La Ressurection de Lazare, dated c. 1867–68,.
Fry, Roger. "Le développement de Cézanne." L'Amour de l'art 7, no. 12 (December 1926), ill. p. 390, as Lazare.
Gasquet, Joachim. Cézanne. Paris: Les Editions Bernheim-Jeune, 1926, p. 172, pl. [32] hors texte, as Le Christ.
Pfister, Kurt. Cézanne: Gestalt, Werk, Mythos. Potsdam: Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1927, fig. 15, as Christus in der Vorhölle, Wanddekoration im Jas de Bouffan, c. 1863.
Fry, Roger. Cézanne: A Study of His Development. New York: Macmillan, 1927, pp. 14 and 26, fig. 1, pl. I.
Sterling, Charles. "Cézanne et les maîtres d'autrefois." La Renaissance (Paris), vol. 19, nos. 5-6 (May–June 1936), p. 7, as Le Christ aux limbes.
Venturi, Lionello. Cézanne: Son Art, Son Oeuvre. Paris: Editions Paul Rosenberg, 1936, no. 84, ill. vol. II, as Le Christ aux limbes.
Rewald, John. "Sources d'inspiration de Cézanne." L'Amour de l'art 17, no. 5 (May 1936), fig. 92 p. 191, as La descente aux limbes, c.1868 (with Sebastiano del Piombo's La descente aux limbes, fig. 91).
Barnes, Albert C., and Violette de Mazia. The Art of Cézanne. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1939, no. 11, ill. p. 153 (analysis p. 311).
Novotny, Fritz. Cézanne. London: Phaidon Press, 1947, pl. 1, as Le Christ aux limbes, 1864-68.
Fry, Roger. Cézanne: A Study of his Developement. London: Hogarth Press, 1952, p. 14, pl. I fig. 1, as Raising of Lazarus.
Williams, Forest. "Cézanne and French Phenomenology." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 12, no. 4 (June 1954), p. 482.
Berthold, Gertrude. Cézanne und die alten Meister. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1958, listed p. 154.
Schapiro, Meyer. Paul Cézanne. Translated by Louis-Marie Ollivier. Paris: Nouvelles Editions Françaises, 1973, p. 11, ill.
Lewis, Mary Tompkins. "Cézanne's 'Harrowing of Hell and the Magdalen.'" Gazette des beaux-arts, vol. 98, periode 6 (April 1981), pp. 175–78, fig. 1 (photograph of the entire mural before division).
Reff, Theodore. "Cézanne: The Severed Head and the Skull." Arts Magazine 58, no. 2 (October 1983), p. 94, fig. 12.
Coutagne, Denis. "Le retour de l'enfant prodigue." In Cézanne au Musée d'Aix. Aix-en-Provence: Musée Granet, 1984, p. 116, photograph of the painting hanging in the salon at Jas de Bouffan.
Lewis, Mary Tompkins. Cézanne's Early Imagery. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989, pp. 47–62, fig. 19.
Cachin, Françoise, and Joseph Rishel. Cézanne. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1995. Exhibition catalogue, p. 99, fig. 1.
Rewald, John. The Paintings of Paul Cézanne, A Catalogue Raisonné, 2 vols. In Collaboration with Walter Feilchenfeldt and Jayne Warman. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996, no. 145, ill. vol. 2 and p. 26, ill. col. vol. 1, as Le Christ aux limbes.
Coutagne, Denis. "Approche contradictoire d'un thème: Le Jas de Bouffan chez Cézanne." In Cézanne aujourd'hui. Paris: Editions de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1997, pp. 80-81, fig. 28 (photograph of the entire mural before division).
Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Nina M. Cézanne and Provence: The Painter in His Culture. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003, p. 69, fig. 2.17, as Le Christ aux limbes, with La Madeleine.
Lewis, Mary Tompkins. "Cézanne's Paintings in the Grand Salon at Jas de Bouffan." In Jas de Bouffan: Cézanne, Société Paul Cézanne. Aix-en-Provence: Hexagone, 2004, fig. 72, ill. in color.
Dittmann, Lorenz. Die Kunst Cézannes: Farbe, Rythmus, Symbolik. Cologne: Böhlau, 2005, p. 144, ill. in b/w.
Tosini, Aurora Scotti. "Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)." In Cézanne, Renoir. Milan: Skira, 2005. Exhibition catalogue, p. 48, ill.
Lobstein, Dominique. "Acquisition: Paul Cézanne, Le Christ aux limbes." 48/14 La Revue du musée d'Orsay, no. 24 (Spring 2007), pp. 44-45, as Le Christ aux limbes, 1967-69.
Coutagne, Denis. Cézanne abstraction faite. Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 2011, p. 164, fig. 107.
Kovács, Anna Zsófia. "Cézanne's Use of Reproductive Prints." In Cézanne and the Past: Tradition and Creativity. Budapest: Museum of Fine Arts, 2012. Exhibition catalogue, p. 135, fig. 77, as Christ in Limbo.
Nagaï, Takanori. "Cézanne and Jas de Bouffan." In Le "basho" dans l'art moderne français. Tokyo: Sangensha, 2016, p. 114, ill.
Cezanne, Jas de Bouffan: art et histoire. Under the scientific direction of Denis Coutagne and François Chédeville. Lyon; Aix-en-Provence: Fage édition; Société Paul Cezanne, 2019, fig. 108 p. 123, (fig. 106 photo of mural before division p. 122) (fig. 227 digital reconstitution of the Jas de Bouffan's Grand Salon after 1867 p. 243).
Notes
Copy of an engraving after Sebastiano del Piombo's Christ’s Descent into Limbo (1516) in the Prado (once attributed to Juan Fernandez de Navarrete). The engraving was published by Charles Blanc in 1869 https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k851375b/f65.item, hence the date of the painting.
Note that the illustration in Julius Meier-Graefe's 1922 edition of Cézanne und sein Kreis shows a portion of La Madeleine La Douleur; La Madeleine, c.1869 (599), which was part of the mural painted on the wall of the Jas de Bouffan.
Sebastiano del Piombo, Christ’s Descent into Limbo, 1516, oil on canvas, Museum del Prado, Madrid.
image from Cézanne und sein Kreis, 1922
Interior of the salon of the Jas de Bouffan in 1912.
John Rewald Archive, Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Related
Record last updated February 21, 2025. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Société Paul Cezanne. "Le Christ aux limbes, c.1869 (FWN 598), Mural transferred to canvas." In The Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings of Paul Cezanne: An Online Catalogue Raisonné. www.cezannecatalogue.com/catalogue/entry.php?id=154 (accessed on July 11, 2025).
