The Card Players
1890–92
Paul Cézanne (French)
Bequest of Stephen C. Clark, 1960 (61.101.1)
Traveling Exhibitions
Traveling Works of Art
Conservation Projects
Excavations
Fellows
Exchanges & Collaborations
Multiple Items
About The Met Around the World
The Met Around the World presents the Met’s work via the global scope of its collection and as it extends across the nation and the world through a variety of domestic and international initiatives and programs, including exhibitions, excavations, fellowships, professional exchanges, conservation projects, and traveling works of art.
The Met Around the World is designed and maintained by the Office of the Director.
Traveling
Exhibitions
The Met organizes large and small exhibitions that travel beyond the Museum's walls, extending our scholarship to institutions across the world. See our national and international traveling exhibition program from 2009 to the present.
Traveling
Works of Art
The Met lends works of art to exhibitions and institutions worldwide to expose its collection to the broadest possible audience. See our current national and international loans program.
Conservation
Projects
The preservation of works of art is a fundamental part of the Met's mission. Our work in this area includes treating works of art from other collections. See our national and international conservation activities from 2009 to the present.
Excavations
The Met has conducted excavations for over 100 years in direct partnership with source countries at some of the most important archaeological sites in the world. Today we continue this tradition in order to gain greater understanding of our ancient collections. See our national and international excavation program from the Met's founding to the present.
Fellows
The Met hosts students, scholars, and museum professionals so that they can learn from our staff and pursue independent research in the context of the Met's exceptional resources and facilities. See the activities of our current national and international fellows.
Exchanges & Collaborations
The Met's work takes many forms, from participation in exchange programs at partnering institutions and worldwide symposia to advising on a range of museum issues. These activities contribute to our commitment to advancing the work of the larger, global community of art museums. See our national and international exchange program and other collaborations from 2009 to the present.
There are currently no international activities in this region.
Conservation Projects
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X-radiograph of Paul Cézanne's The Card Players (61.101.1).
Technical examination of Cézanne's Card Players series
United Kingdom
February–March 2011
In February–May 2011, the Metropolitan Museum hosted an exhibition, Cézanne's Card Players, organized in collaboration with the Courtauld Gallery, which brought together for the first time works from Cézanne's series of Card Player paintings together with their associated oil studies and drawings. Cézanne's five paintings of card players are generally acknowledged as masterpieces, but little is known of their creation: none has been dated definitively and while there is broad consensus that the multifigure compositions (now housed at the Metropolitan and the Barnes Foundation) preceded the two-figure paintings (Musée d'Orsay, Courtauld Gallery, and Private Collection), the chronological order within both subgroups has been the subject of extensive connoisseurial and stylistic debate. In preparation for the exhibition, Metropolitan Museum conservators worked with colleagues at the Courtauld to investigate the development of the series of Card Player paintings through technical examination.
Using X-radiography, infrared reflectography, and surface examination, the conservators demonstrated that, contrary to most scholarly opinions, the smallest paintings came first. Cézanne worked from studies of individual models—laborers at the Jas de Bouffon, the estate he inherited from his father. The Metropolitan's canvas shows how he struggled to assemble these figures around a small table. Note, for example, the absent hand of the man on the right in the Metropolitan's painting, a feature left unresolved in his preparatory drawings, and the "haloes" around the figures seen in the X-radiograph that chart the numerous adjustments on the canvas as he created his now-iconic composition.
Partnered with The Courtauld Gallery, London.
Using X-radiography, infrared reflectography, and surface examination, the conservators demonstrated that, contrary to most scholarly opinions, the smallest paintings came first. Cézanne worked from studies of individual models—laborers at the Jas de Bouffon, the estate he inherited from his father. The Metropolitan's canvas shows how he struggled to assemble these figures around a small table. Note, for example, the absent hand of the man on the right in the Metropolitan's painting, a feature left unresolved in his preparatory drawings, and the "haloes" around the figures seen in the X-radiograph that chart the numerous adjustments on the canvas as he created his now-iconic composition.
Partnered with The Courtauld Gallery, London.