The royal family of Qatar purchases Paul Cezanne’s Card Players for a record $250 million

“Card players”, Paul Cezanne

The work is one in a series of five, but until now was the only one remaining in private collection.

Royal family of Qatar

Vanity Fair reported that Qatar's royal family bought one of the 5 existing versions of Cezanne's 'The Card Players' for over $250 million. Forbes published today that it was Josh Baer of BaerFaxt who first broke it in 2011 the purchase of Cezanne's Card Players for $250 million from the estate of Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos.

Paul Cézanne was born on January 19, 1839, in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Paul Cezanne

While in school, he enrolled in the free drawing academy in Aix, which he attended intermittently for several years. In 1858, he graduated from the Collège Bourbon, where he had become an intimate friend of his fellow student Emile Zola. Cézanne entered the law school of the University of Aix in 1859 to placate his father but abandoned his studies to join Zola in Paris in 1861. For the next twenty years, Cézanne divided his time between the Midi and Paris. In the capital, he briefly attended the Atelier Suisse with Camille Pissarro, whose art later came to influence his own. In 1862, Cézanne began long friendships with Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. His paintings were included in the 1863 Salon des Refusés, which displayed works not accepted by the jury of the official Paris Salon. The Salon itself rejected Cézanne’s submissions each year from 1864 to 1869.

In 1870, following the declaration of the Franco-Prussian War, Cézanne left Paris for Aix-en-Provence and then nearby L’Estaque, where he continued to paint.

The workshop of Paul Cezanne from Aix-en-Provence

He made the first of several visits to Pontoise in 1872; there, he worked alongside Pissarro. He participated in the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874. From 1876 to 1879, his works were again rejected for the Salon. Cézanne showed again with the Impressionists in 1877 in their third exhibition. At that time, Georges Rivière was one of the few critics to support his art. In 1882, the Salon accepted his work for the first and only time. Beginning in 1883, Cézanne resided in the South of France, returning to Paris occasionally.

In 1890, Cézanne exhibited with the group Les Vingt in Brussels and spent five months in Switzerland. He traveled to Giverny in 1894 to visit Monet, who introduced him to Auguste Rodin and the critic Gustave Geffroy. Cézanne’s first solo show was held at Ambroise Vollard’s gallery in Paris in 1895. From this time, he received increasing recognition. In 1899, he participated in the Salon des Indépendants in Paris for the first time. The following year, he took part in the Centennial Exhibition in Paris. In 1903, the Berlin and Vienna Secessions included Cézanne’s work, and in 1904 he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne, Paris. That same year, he was given a solo exhibition at the Galerie Cassirer, Berlin. Cézanne died on October 22, 1906, in Aix-en-Provence.

 "Selfportrait", Paul Cezanne

One of the most influential artists in the history of twentieth-century painting, Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) has inspired generations of modern artists. Generally categorized as a Post-Impressionist, his unique method of building form with color and his analytical approach to nature influenced the art of Cubists, Fauvists and successive generations of avant-garde artists.