The original marble, now lost, was attributed to French sculptor Pierre Puget (1620-94) but is of uncertain authorship. The motif was incorporated into two of Cézanne's still life paintings attesting to the revolutionary's master's reverence for tradition. The drawing was acquired for the British Museum a year after the death of Roger Fry a co-founder of the Art Fund and the greatest champion of Cézanne in the early twentieth century.

Provenance

Collection of Samuel Courtauld