Fifteen years after one of his paintings was stolen from the museum, the Ashmolean is opening a new exhibition displaying the work of French artist, Paul Cézanne.
The oil painting, ‘Near Auvers-sur-Oise’, worth £3m was stolen from the Ashmolean on New Years day in 1999 and has not yet been recovered. It is thought that burglars had entered through the museum’s glass roof and stolen the painting in the early hours of the morning.
However, the Ashmolean will once again display Cézanne’s work in their first exhibition of 2014, ‘Cézanne and the Modern’. The exhibition is the first European display of the Pearlman Collection, which has until recently been on long term loan to the Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey.
It features fifty works from various impressionist and post-impressionist artists, including 24 paintings and watercolours by Cézanne.
Director of the Ashmolean, Professor Christopher Brown CBE, commented that: “The Ashmolean is honoured to be the first European venue to show the world-renowned Pearlman Collection.
“We are also very pleased to be working with another great university museum – the Princeton University Art Museum – and hope that this landmark exhibition will establish links with colleagues in Princeton for the future.”
Senior Curator of European Art, Mr Colin Harrison, said that: “Cézanne and the Modern offers visitors the opportunity to see extraordinary masterpieces by some of the most famous artists of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements.
Apart from the amazing paintings and watercolours by Cézanne, it includes wonderful works by artists who are little known in England.”
The exhibition will run from the 13 March-22 June 2014.
