Ambroise Vollard: The Steins

"Still Life with Apples and a Pot of Primroses"
by Cézanne

"One morning, in the rue de Gramont, I was visited by a very distinguished-looking lady. 'I am the Marquise de S...,' she told me, 'I have come to ask you to do me a very great service. I have a great wish to see the Matisses and Picassos that belong to the Steins. I have been told you know them well.' 'You need no introduction, Madame,' I said, 'They are the most hospitable people in the world, the Steins - the two brothers and the sister, Miss Gertrude Stein. Their door is open to the public every Saturday from nine in the evening onwards.'

On the following Saturday, at her request, I accompanied the Marquise to the Steins. Outsiders might easily have imagined themselves in a public gallery. No one paid any attention to them. People came in and out, and Leo Stein never moved from his favourite position: half-reclining in an armchair, with his feet high up on a shelf of his bookcase. 'Excellent for the digestion,' he declared. People who came there out of snobbery soon felt a sort of discomfort at being allowed so much liberty in another man's house, and did not come again. Only those who really cared for painting continued to frequent this hospitable house.

When I recall those old times, I recall the marvellous portrait of 'Mme Cézanne in a Red Armchair.' This painting had once belonged to me, and I had lent it to a retrospective exhibition of the 'Master of Aix,' organized at the Salon d'Automne of 1905. Every time I went to the exhibition I saw the Steins, the two brothers and the sister, seated on a bench in front of the portrait. They contemplated it in silence till the day when, the Salon being closed, Mr. Leo Stein came to bring me the price of the painting. He was accompanied by Miss Stein. 'Now,' said she, 'the picture is ours!' They might have been ransoming someone they loved."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Recollections of a Picture Dealer" by Ambroise Vollard.)