Paul Cézanne's Joueur de cartes Found

A rare watercolor study by the modern master Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) last seen in public in 1953 has re-emerged from a private collection in Texas after nearly 60 years and will be featured as the lead highlight of Christie's Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on May 1 in New York. The full-size work on paper is one of the artist's preparatory studies for Les joueurs de cartes (Card Players), the seminal five-painting series that Cézanne completed between 1890 and 1896. Previously known only from a black and white photograph, the study was rediscovered earlier this year in the collection of the late Dr. Heinz F. Eichenwald, a prominent collector and internationally renowned medical expert who spent his career in Dallas, Texas, after emigrating to the United States in the mid-1930s. Meticulously preserved, with fresh and unfaded hues of blue and ochre, this tantalizing view into the painting process of one of modern art's great masters is estimated to achieve US$15-20 million. [more...]