In the footsteps of Cezanne in Aix-en-Provence: the Jas de Bouffan country house

On the occasion of the special exhibition organized at the Granet Museum until October 12, we have chosen to take you in the footsteps of Paul Cezanne with a series of articles dedicated to the illustrious Provençal painter.

Located on the outskirts of Aix-en-Provence, a 20-minute walk from the city center, the Jas de Bouffan country house is a key address in the story of Paul Cezanne. His father, Louis-Auguste, purchased this fifteen-hectare agricultural property in 1859, after making his fortune in banking. Paul was only 20 years old at the time. With its mansion, its large park adorned with a pond, its chestnut trees, and its surrounding landscapes, the Jas de Bouffan would become both the cradle of his art and his center of gravity.

The painter lived there, more or less permanently, for forty years. The city of Aix-en-Provence first bought the country house in 1994, then the nearby farm in 2017, the two properties having been separated. On this estate, which now covers 5 hectares, a major rehabilitation project was launched in September 2024. Three periods of work are planned for a total amount estimated by Sophie Joissains, mayor of the city, at 13 million euros. Nine easels have been installed in the park with reproductions of his paintings on the very spot where he painted them.

In 1882, Cezanne's father had a studio with a large glass roof built for his son on the north side. In this gray-walled room, now open to the public, the painter created numerous masterpieces, exhibited in the world's greatest museums. Nearby, his mother's bedroom has also been restored. It is covered in stucco relief decorations in shades of yellow and white. A mythological scene depicting Leda and the swan overlooks the fireplace.

The highlight of the show is on the ground floor, in the Grand Salon of the Jas de Bouffan. Decorating this room occupied Cezanne for about ten years, until approximately 1870. The budding artist had one foot in tradition and the other in modernity. He wanted to enter the museum like the great masters he admired, notably Nicolas Poussin, while dreaming of creating a new style that would be his own.

The Grand Salon would be his laboratory. " His father gave him carte blanche to decorate this rectangular room of 80 square meters," says Pierre Laforest, administrator of Cezanne sites for the City of Aix-en-Provence. " He relied on pre-existing motifs painted on the ceiling in the 18th century ." Initially, Cezanne imagined four large main panels. " We now know that they represented a harbor entrance, a landscape with a castle on a hill, another with a waterfall and a farm, and a final romantic one, with fishermen and a dungeon, motifs inspired by the great classical painters," analyzes the expert.

At the back of the room, in an alcove, Cezanne painted four panels of more than 3 meters high by one meter wide : women embodying the four seasons. " We don't really know why, but he signed these panels Ingres. Irony or boasting? There are several hypotheses," laughs Pierre Laforest. In the center of the alcove, Cezanne surprisingly places a portrait of his father reading the newspaper.

Over time, Paul Cezanne completed his first frescoes and covered some paintings with others. " Here, he painted a portrait of a friend, with shaggy hair," Pierre Laforest shows. "And on the other side, to the west, a Christ in Limbo and a Magdalene. In another corner, much later, he painted a work of rupture, a portrait called 'Contrast' ." When the country house was sold to the Granel family in 1899, the Grand Salon was entirely covered with these paintings, which might have seemed strange at the time. " There was no coherence," smiles our guide. This heterogeneous salon, reconstructed at the Granet Museum, will be one of the highlights of the exhibition.

At the dawn of the 20th century, the new owners of the Jas de Bouffan understood that these murals had a market value. Some gallery owners showed interest. They were then removed with great care. Pierre Laforest explains that to " strip the walls " supporting these works painted directly on the plaster, " we glue a canvas onto the painting, we make a formwork with a board the size of the area we want to remove. By hammering the edges deeply, we push into the wall and then we detach the block little by little, leveraging it with a crowbar. We tip the painted plaster onto the formwork. We then scrape the plaster and fix the pictorial layer onto a canvas with a very good glue." This delicate maneuver, during which the risk of losing material and creating cracks is high.

From 1910 to 1973, all of Cezanne's works were torn down and dispersed. To borrow a famous phrase, his Grand Salon can now be found all over the world, scattered like a puzzle, in private collections and major museums: The Four Seasons (Petit Palais in Paris), The Painter's Father, Louis-Auguste Cezanne (National Gallery in London), Bather on the Rock ( Norfolk in the United States), The Game of Hide and Seek, after Lancret (Hiroshima in Japan), Christ in Limbo and The Magdalene (Musée d'Orsay in Paris)...

We thought all the Cezannes were gone until the day the remains of a fresco were found, hidden under several layers of plaster . In February 2023, surveys carried out before the restoration of the salon revealed a fragment of a work measuring 5 to 6 ^{m2 ,} representing the entrance to a port. This relaunched the research which led in the spring of 2025 to a new discovery : a decoration composed of a central medallion and floral garlands in gypsum , located just above the alcove. Like a decorative painter, the artist also created faux wood bases, with coffers imitating the woodwork of castles. The archaeology of the Grand Salon is not finished. Under the toxic lead paint covering the walls, one Cezanne could be hiding another...

Starting June 28, the opening day of the Cezanne exhibition at the Jas de Bouffan, one-hour guided tours will be offered in this fundamental place in the painter's history. In the Grand Salon, projections will allow visitors to visualize on the walls the different phases of the decoration and then the removal of the works. Denis Coutagne, president of the Paul Cezanne Society, says that the Jas de Bouffan represents " the arch of entry into Cezanne's work ." ?

With the painter's great-grandson, Philippe Cezanne, and Bruno Ely, the director of the Granet Museum, they created this association whose ambition is to " develop the presence and knowledge of Cezanne in Aix ." The old farmhouse adjoining the country house will soon house a research and documentation center which will also be responsible for the catalog raisonné of Cezanne's work. " We will add, if we are certain, new authenticated works, bibliographic information, photographic reproductions... a huge amount of work will be done here," explains Denis Coutagne. "We will also repatriate the archives located in New York." Bruno Ely adds: "It's a seal that will signal that it is truly in Aix that the references of knowledge of Cezanne are rooted." A return to the sources in a way.

Bastide du Jas de Bouffan, 4 route de Valcros, Aix-en-Provence Open every day from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. from June 28 to September 30 and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. from October 1 to November 2, 2025. Guided tour with reservation required, even if free, on the website Cezanne2025.com Full price at 9.5 euros and reduced price at 7.5 euros. Park only: 3 euros