PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Two unfinished sketches have been discovered on the reverse side of two watercolors by Paul Cezanne – and officials at Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation museum says the collector who bought them more than 90 years ago probably never knew they were there.
The foundation said the sketches – one graphite and the other watercolor – were found during conservation work on the reverse sides of two Cezanne watercolors depicting the landscape of southern France.
Officials said in a news release that the sketches haven’t been seen since at least the early 20th century, “most likely prior to Dr. Albert Barnes’s purchase of the works from Leo Stein in 1921.”
“We’ve had (the watercolors) out of the frame before. But the backs were covered with brown paper,” Barbara Buckley, the foundation’s senior director of conservation and chief painting conservator, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “That’s one of the reasons they were sent (for conservation). Brown paper is very acidic, and they needed acid-free paper.”
Officials said Cezanne often worked on both sides of the paper in his sketchbooks and on larger sheets, producing thousands of such drawings over the course of his career, but they were usually done “to experiment with line and color.”