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 395
Tête de femme (portrait présumé Gabrielle Meley)
1864
Alternate titles: Etude de Femme; Portrait présumé de Gabrielle Meley; Tête de femme (portrait présumé de Madame Zola)
Rewald (75): 1864; Venturi revised: 1864; Venturi (22): 1864; Rivière: 1864
Oil on canvas
18 1/8 x 15 in. (46 x 38 cm)
Signed lower left: P. Cezanne 1864
Provenance
Private collection, London
Private collection
Exhibition History
Salon d'Automne, Grand Palais, Paris, Rétrospective d'oeuvres de Cézanne, October 1–22, 1907, no. 6, as Étude de femme, lent by Pellerin.
Published References
Rivière, Georges. Le Maître Paul Cézanne. Paris: Librairie Floury, 1923, pp. 163, ill., 196, listed, as Etude de Femme.
Venturi, Lionello. Cézanne: Son Art, Son Oeuvre. Paris: Editions Paul Rosenberg, 1936, no. 22, ill. vol. II, as Étude de femme.
Adhémar, Jean. Emile Zola. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1952. Exhibition catalogue, no. 52, as Portrait présumé de Gabrielle Meley, photograph shown in exhibition.
Émile Zola. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1952. Exhibition catalogue, no. 52 (a photograph of this picture was shown).
Adhémar, Hélène, and Jean Adhémar. "Zola et la peinture." Arts 389 (December 12–18, 1952), p. 10, ill.
Adhémar, Jean. "Le cabinet de travail de Zola." Gazette des beaux-arts, vol. 56, periode 6 (November 1960), pp. 293 et 294 (no. 129), fig. 13, p. 297.
Laborde, Albert. Trente-huit Années près de Zola: La Vie d'Alexandrine Emile Zola. Paris: Éditeurs Français Réunis, 1963, p. 30.
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. 75, ill. vol. 2, as Tête de femme (portrait présumé de Madame Zola).
Cézanne, Philippe. Paul Cezanne dépeint par ses contemporains. Lyon: Fage éditions, 2021, fig. 65.
Notes
Gabrielle-Alexandrine Meley sat for Cézanne in 1864. Some have speculated that she may have been Cézanne's mistress before she married Emile Zola in 1870. This hypothesis is based on characters in Zola's novel Madeleine Férat (1868). It is the story of a young woman torn between her first lover and the man who marries her. Both men coincidentally are childhood friends. Rewald (1996, p. 84) raised doubts about the liaison.
Record last updated November 23, 2020. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Société Paul Cezanne. "Tête de femme (portrait présumé Gabrielle Meley), 1864 (FWN 395)." In The Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings of Paul Cezanne: An Online Catalogue Raisonné. www.cezannecatalogue.com/catalogue/entry.php?id=90 (accessed on May 2, 2025).
