Focus on this artwork and explain the Studies and sketches.
Cézanne created a substantial number of studies and preparatory drawings for The Card Players series. While it had long been believed he began the series with the largest paintings and subsequently worked smaller, 21st-century x-rays of the paintings as well as further analysis of preparatory sketches and studies has led some scholars to believe Cézanne used both the studies and the smaller versions of The Card Players to prepare for the larger canvases.Over a dozen initial sketches and painted studies of local farmworkers were made by Cézanne in preparation for the final paintings. It has been speculated his models sat for the studies rather than the finished works themselves, and the painter possibly sketched preliminary work in an Aix cafe.Some of the studies have been well regarded as stand-alone works of their own volition, particularly the accompaniment piece Man with a Pipe, displayed alongside The Card Players at the Courtauld Gallery in London. The former, along with two similar paintings of smokers undertaken in the same period, are considered by many to be some of Cézanne's most masterful portraits.
Courtauld Gallery x-ray