36 Portraits of Marie-Hortense Fiquet

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Cezanne painted 29 portraits and made countless drawings of Hortense Fiquet. He drew and painted his mistress in graphite, watercolor, and oil. The first painting exists only in a photograph, and the second was of Fiquet nursing their baby.

Fiquet and Cezanne met in Paris sometime around 1869. Cezanne was a 30 year old painter living on a small allowance from his wealthy banker father, and Fiquet was a 19 year old bookbinder with a side gig as an artist’s model. Hortense started modeling for Cezanne at least starting at age 22. She continued to be his muse for more than 20 years, 17 of which was before their marriage, as Cezanne attempted to hide knowledge of her and their son from his father, for fear that his father would cut his allowance. Despite the secrecy, and even before their marriage, the Parisian Hortense Fiquet came to be known as “Madame Cezanne.”

It is difficult to place the portraits in chronological order because the artist tended to rework his portraits over long periods of time. I did find some dates, however, and though there were a few conflicts in the information, I was able to pull together an approximate timeline. It was noted that in the earlier paintings Hortense looks somewhat self-consciously away, but by the mid-1880s she is unabashedly staring at the artist.

Below is a selection of Cezanne’s portraits of his greatest muse Hortense Fiquet.

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