Harlequin

A red-and-black figure occupies nearly the whole height of the canvas. The arm on the viewer’s right reaches into an open patch of blue-violet wall. The other hand hangs beside his hip with a dark, irregular shape. Above his small face, a pale cap curves under an ochre hanging; below, one leg crosses behind the other. The figure is dressed for a role, but the painting gives him neither a partner nor a visible audience. The separation of his hands and the uneven position of his feet make the pose feel momentary without explaining what happens next.

This is the privately held Arlequin catalogued as FWN 670, Rewald 621 and Venturi 553, dated broadly to 1888–90. ^[1]

As of 22 October 2026 it is listed for the Blaquier-Arrieta Collection sale scheduled at Sotheby’s, New York, on 18 November. ^[2]

A pose held between two directions

The composition first looks straightforward: a single body standing against a wall. It becomes less settled when the two arms are followed separately. The extended arm leads the eye across the right half of the picture, beyond the column of the costume. The lower hand presses toward the opposite edge and carries a crumpled, dark form. At this image size its exact identity is uncertain. A narrow dark stroke seems to continue near the extended fingers, but neither hand gives us an unambiguous account of an action. The painting is more precise about their opposing directions than about the objects they may hold.

The torso makes a vertical centre, yet the limbs refuse a symmetrical pose. A belt cinches the waist and briefly checks the downward rush of diamonds. On one side, the arm and hand stretch almost horizontally; on the other, the elbow remains close to the body. The rear leg sweeps leftward, opening a dark wedge between the legs, while the front foot reaches toward the bottom edge. These shifts create movement inside a remarkably narrow standing figure. Cover the hands and the legs suggest a step. Cover the feet and the hands suggest a pause or gesture. Seen together, they leave the instant suspended.

The painted diamonds also alter the apparent body. Large red patches command the shoulders and chest, smaller ones follow the tightening waist, and angular pieces turn along the thighs. Some meet at firm dark borders; others seem to merge into the surrounding black. The pattern is readable as a Harlequin suit but cannot be treated as a flat grid laid over a mannequin. Its changes of scale make the torso and legs feel unevenly weighted. A viewer can recognise the character immediately and still have to look slowly to work out how the body occupies the costume.

The face is comparatively tiny. Warm orange marks pick out the nose and cheek, and darker strokes make the eyes and mouth difficult to read from a distance. The broad pale cap enlarges the head’s outline without enlarging its features. Beneath it, a black collar breaks into jagged edges against the red shoulders. The face does not offer a reliable emotional key. Its smallness shifts attention back to the silhouette, the costume and the space around the figure, so a claim that he is lonely or triumphant would say more than the visible evidence allows.

Wall, hanging and floor

The ochre fabric at the top forms an arch above the cap. It does not frame the entire body like a complete theatre curtain. Its lower edge meets the pale headgear so closely that the two shapes nearly compete for the same contour. The wall beneath them is blue and violet with irregular green and mauve marks. These patches stop the background from becoming a smooth backdrop. They also echo the broken edges of the suit, making the figure stand out through colour contrast while still sharing the wall’s active surface.

A dark baseboard runs behind the legs, almost from edge to edge. That line states the simplest fact about the setting: there is a wall and a floor. Yet it does little to fix the figure at a measurable distance from either. The board is nearly level, while the front shoe and the diagonal rear leg pull forward and sideways. At the floor, bright reds, oranges and ochres compete with the costume rather than settling into a quiet support. The lower portion can seem to rise toward the viewer. Cézanne offers enough of a room to locate the body, then makes its colours and directions resist a stable stage set.

A Harlequin, but which painting?

Cézanne made three single-figure Harlequins and the two-figure Mardi gras . The catalogue distinguishes this FWN 670 from Washington’s FWN 671, Pola’s FWN 669 and Moscow’s paired FWN 668. ^[1]

The distinction is visible before any catalogue is consulted. Washington’s figure has a long pale baton crossing in front of his torso; this figure extends his arm to the right and has no such diagonal across the chest. The paired work brings in a white-clad second performer. The titles overlap, but the compositions do not.

Mary Tomkins-Lewis situates Cézanne’s costumed figures within a tradition of theatrical portraits and images of commedia dell’arte characters. Her close discussion addresses Mardi gras in particular, including Paul Cézanne fils’s recollection of posing with Louis Guillaume. ^[3] That context helps identify the costume and the possibility of a posed model here, but it does not supply a scene for this solitary figure. The cap, diamonds and hanging announce the role; the blank wall and absence of Pierrot keep any particular episode out of view.

The Art Institute of Chicago reports the son’s later recollection of posing in Harlequin dress in Paris in late 1888. Its account concerns a related drawing and the Washington canvas, so it cannot date this oil precisely. ^[4]

The online catalogue notes a Vollard archive photograph of FWN 670 reportedly annotated “1889” by Cézanne’s son. It preserves other proposals from 1888 to about 1889 within the broader 1888–90 date. ^[1] The disagreement cautions against presenting a single year as settled.

Pavel Machotka, writing about the three isolated Harlequins together, argues that they should be understood as complete paintings rather than merely as studies for Mardi gras . He calls attention to their altered hats and small heads and to the relationship between red and blue-black. ^[5] The open wall beside the extended arm, the cap beneath the hanging and the hot floor give this canvas relations of its own. Machotka’s group argument does not establish the order in which the four canvases were made.

From early exhibitions to a private collection

The catalogue traces the canvas through Vollard, Gangnat, Rosenberg, Lord Rothschild and the Blaquiers. It records exhibitions in Berlin in 1900–01, Paris in 1907 and New York in 1929. ^[1]

For all the records attached to it, the painting remains most rewarding at close range. Its recognizable costume never resolves the ambiguous gesture; the figure seems poised to act while the colours and directions keep us looking at the interval before any action can be named.