Three Cézanne Paintings Pulled From Paris Sale, Bound for Aix-en-Provence

Sotheby's has pulled three paintings by Paul Cézanne from an evening auction in Paris. The works are being returned to Aix-en-Provence in southern France, where they will be displayed at the Musée Granet, the town's museum.

The sale, titled Le Temps Retrouvé: The Schlumberger Collection, was scheduled for Thursday alongside Art Basel Paris, the Paris edition of the international art fair. The three works are La Ferme, Arbres au Bord de la Rivière and Ciel Entre les Arbres. Together they carried a combined estimate of US$1.57 million to US$2.24 million (€1.4 million to €2 million). An estimate is the price range an auction house expects a work to reach.

The paintings were made between 1862 and 1864, when Cézanne was in his early twenties. He worked at Jas de Bouffan, his family's estate near Aix-en-Provence, which also served as his early studio. ArtNews reported that the three works were once part of a large mural on the estate's ground-floor walls.

That mural did not stay in one piece. After the estate was sold, it was cut from the wall and mounted on canvas in 1899. A fresco, a painting made directly on wet plaster, is hard to move once it is on a wall, so this kind of lifting is a delicate job. The result was split into eight fragments, and the three works now being withdrawn are among them.

Sotheby's catalogue describes Arbres au bord de la rivière as a fresco transferred to canvas, measuring 151.7 by 88.1 centimetres, roughly 5 by 3 feet. The Sotheby's listing gives that painting an estimate of €400,000 to €600,000. The catalogue also lists La Ferme as a fresco transferred to canvas.

Sotheby's said it held discussions with the Schlumberger family and the town of Aix-en-Provence. The town, with support from the French Ministry of Culture, intends to acquire the works for the museum. The auction house did not put a price on that plan.

For the people of Aix, the story is about bringing home paintings that were made on the estate where the young artist first worked. For buyers in Paris, it means three lots will not go under the hammer on Thursday. A lot is a single item in an auction, and the hammer is the gavel the auctioneer taps to close the bidding, before fees are added.

More than 125 years ago, a wall at Jas de Bouffan was taken apart. Now three pieces of it are going home.