The mask-like character of Cézanne’s portraits has often been noted. The subject seems reduced to a still life. The facial expressions are limited and the pose often rigid.

In addition to self-portraits, country people and friends of the household sat for him, as did his wife Hortense Fiquet and his son Paul, allowing him to build up faces which were almost sculptural in form. The culmination of this approach came in the series of portraits of his father as master of the manor at Jas de Bouffan, in around 1864-1866, in the 1866 series of his uncle Dominique and in the Card Players of 1891-1893.