The Smoker, 1890 Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)

We create our paintings with museum quality and covering the highest academic standards. Once we get your order, it will be entirely hand-painted with oil on canvas. All the materials we use are the highest level, being totally artist graded painting materials and linen canvas.

We will add 1.6" (4 cm) additional blank canvas all over the painting for stretching.

High quality and detailing in every inch are time consuming. The reproduction of Paul Cezanne also needs time to dry in order to be completely ready for shipping, as this is crucial to not be damaged during transportation.
Based on the size, level of detail and complexity we need 8-9 weeks to complete the process.

In case the delivery date needs to be extended in time, or we are overloaded with requests, there will be an email sent to you sharing the new timelines of production and delivery.

TOPofART wants to remind you to keep patient, in order to get you the highest quality, being our mission to fulfill your expectations.

We not stretch and frame our oil paintings due to several reasons:
Painting reproduction is a high quality expensive product, which we cannot risk to damage by sending it being stretched.
Also, there are postal restrictions, regarding the size of the shipment.
Additionally, due to the dimensions of the stretched canvas, the shipment price may exceed the price of the product itself.

You can stretch and frame your painting in your local frame-shop.

Once the painting The Smoker is ready and dry, it will be shipped to your delivery address. The canvas will be rolled-up in a secure postal tube.

We offer free shipping as well as paid express transportation services.

After adding your artwork to the shopping cart, you will be able to check the delivery price using the Estimate Shipping and Tax tool.

The paintings we create are only of museum quality. Our academy graduated artists will never allow a compromise in the quality and detail of the ordered painting. TOPofART do not work, and will never allow ourselves to work with low quality studios from the Far East. We are based in Europe, and quality is our highest priority.

Paul Cézanne’s "The Smoker," painted around 1890, is a portrait that embodies the artist’s relentless pursuit of structure and form - an almost architectural obsession with how shapes build reality. The figure slouches, elbow lazily resting on a table, pipe hanging casually from his lips. He wears a suit, worn and baggy, like someone who has long abandoned the vanity of trying to appear anything other than exactly what he is. His expression - half distracted, half contemplative - pulls the viewer into his world of quiet solitude, though it’s a solitude that feels content, not forlorn.

Cézanne, in his typical fashion, brushes on color not in smooth swathes, but with careful, deliberate strokes that layer and build into complex surfaces. The colors are earthy - a muted palette of browns, greens, and dusty blues - but the painting vibrates with life because of the way these tones are worked together. His technique, the constant interplay of light and shadow, makes the man's face, in particular, almost sculptural, as if it could have been carved from clay.

Look at the table - the geometric precision of those shapes, intersecting and shifting in the foreground like a puzzle. It's not just a table; it's Cézanne reminding us of the tension between reality and its representation. He has chopped up space into planes, each one holding a different story about how we see and understand the world. The background dissolves into abstract strokes, giving the portrait a timeless, dream-like quality, where form and color are dancing partners in Cézanne's grand, endlessly patient performance. It’s not just a man smoking a pipe - it’s the very essence of existence paused for a breath.