Unearthing A Secret Scene
It was in the venerable Bastide du Jas de Bouffan, the home purchased by Cézanne’s father in 1859, that the discovery was made. In the Grand Salon — a room once adorned with murals painted directly onto its walls between 1859 and 1869 — workers uncovered hidden fragments of a new composition.
The newly found work, now referred to as Entrée du port (Entrance to the Port), stretches across about 64 square feet in its remaining segments. It evokes a maritime panorama: pennants fluttering, masts rising skyward, architectural elements bordering the scene, and a horizon of sky above.
Yet much of the central and lower portions have been lost — torn away or plastered over — leaving jagged boundaries and gaps in what once may have been a sweeping vision.
A Tenth Chapter In Cézanne’s Wall Art
Until now, art historians believed there were nine murals within the Grand Salon, all recorded in John Rewald’s 1996 catalogue raisonné. These nine pieces — including works like Le Baigneur au rocher — had been lifted from their original surfaces, transferred onto canvas, and distributed to museums worldwide.
This unseen mural, however, remained hidden — never catalogued, never removed, never publicly acknowledged. It adds a tenth chapter to the narrative of Cézanne’s early decorative works.
That alone makes it extraordinary. But the story deepens: scholars now believe Cézanne may have partially painted over this work himself. In particular, Entrée du port may have been overlaid with Jeu de cache-cache (Game of Hide and Seek, 1864), which itself re-interpreted a scene by Nicolas Lancret.
Such layering suggests a young painter wrestling with his influences, erasing and reinventing, experimenting in situ. It also complicates the assumed chronology of the room’s murals.
Voices In The Dust
The announcement came on social media via Sophie Joissains, mayor of Aix-en-Provence, who described the renovation as revealing “hidden, unknown treasures.”
Cézanne scholar Mary Tompkins Lewis — one of only a few granted access to view the work — recalled that they were “thunderstruck” by the discovery, calling it a very exciting moment.
Denis Coulagnes, president of the Société Paul Cézanne, noted that the finding challenges the accepted sequence of the salon’s decoration and that while further discoveries are unlikely, the focus now is on preservation and research.
Between Tradition And Transformation
What does Entrée du port tell us about Cézanne’s early ambitions? Its imagery — a port entrance, sky, masts, architectural motifs — suggests that even in his youth he absorbed the visual vocabulary of classical landscapists such as Claude-Joseph Vernet or Claude Lorrain, both known for their seaport and horizon scenes.
Yet in painting over or supplanting it with another work, Cézanne reveals a restless impulse: he was not bound to his first vision, but evolving beyond it. Layers of paint, plaster, and wallpaper now embody the literal and metaphorical layers of his development.
This tension — between inspiration and innovation, between the decorative and the personal — is what makes the mural so resonant. It offers not only an addition to his oeuvre, but a window into the young artist’s inner dialogue.
Aix’s Homecoming And What Lies Ahead
For years, Aix-en-Provence had few works by its native son. The city seemed ambivalent toward its most famous artist. But now, with Entrée du port returning home, the city is poised for a renaissance of its own Cézanne heritage.
The discovery arrives just in time for “Cézanne 2025,” a sweeping cultural initiative that includes the restoration and reopening of the Bastide du Jas de Bouffan, the painter’s Lauves studio, and a major retrospective at the Musée Granet.
When the bastide opens to the public in June 2025, visitors will finally see a home enriched by its original murals — including the newly unveiled fragment — and a city reclaiming the identity of its greatest son.
As the walls breathe again, Entrée du port may remain in situ, preserved in its place of birth. Restorers aim to stabilize what remains, clean away the accretions, and allow the fragment to speak across time.
Though the mural is incomplete, its presence is enough to stir imagination. In the gap where paint has vanished, viewers can envision what once was — a harbor, or a port’s gate, or a horizon bridging water and sky — and, in doing so, feel closer to the spirit of young Cézanne at work.
A New Way To See
In rediscovering Entrée du port, France—and the world—are reminded that even when history seems settled, it can shift in soft gestures: a trowel’s scrape, a claw of wallpaper, the patient eye of a restorer. What was once hidden becomes a conversation across centuries, inviting us to look, imagine, and feel.
There is something hopeful in that. In the quiet dust of a salon, an artist reaches out again. The past is never wholly gone; it lingers, waiting for those who know how to listen.
