After Cézanne

After Cezanne is a large, irregular shaped, obtuse painting done in oils on canvas, begun in 1999 and completed in 2000 by the British artist Lucian Freud. The top left section of this painting has been 'grafted' on to the main section below, and closer inspection reveals a horizontal line where these two sections were joined.
The painting is one in a select group of canvases where Freud engages in a dialogue with past masters, this work being a variation on a theme of the work L'Après-midi à Naples by the French Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne.
In 2001 the work was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, which also owns Cézanne's L'Après-midi à Naples, for $7.4 million. The decision was somewhat controversial at the time, but this perception changed in 2008, when Freud's painting Benefits Supervisor Sleeping sold for "just under $35 million."