Sale: Christie's, London, November 28, 1989, lot 310
Private Collection, Japan (and sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 11, 2000, lot 205)
Acquired at the above sale 

Work is in very good condition overall. Canvas is not lined. Surface is clean. Under UV light: a few small spots of inpainting and uneven varnish around center of bottom edge including one larger spot. Otherwise fine.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Dufy’s Fauve style, most notably his liberal use of colors, frenzied application of paint and simplification of forms, is exemplified in the splendid Paysage au puits. While the particular location is unspecified, the landscape at hand may have been inspired by the little fishing village of L’Estaque near Marseille. Painted between 1908-10, the present painting was completed shortly after Dufy’s first visit to the South of France where he joined fellow painter Georges Braque in the summer of 1908. Braque’s Cubist style and influence on Dufy is evident in the angular forms and restrained palette of greens and ochre seen in the artist’s works of this period (see fig. 1). 

Like Vlaminck and Braque, Dufy was profoundly influenced by the major Cézanne exhibitions held in Paris in 1907. While painting with Braque at L'Estaque in the South of France in 1908, Dufy slowly stepped away from the bold, bright palette of his earlier Fauvist work and moved toward an abstracted set of forms and restrained palette in pursuit of what he believed to be the lessons taught by Cézanne. It is at this moment, in other words, that Dufy began to embrace his mature style. As the artist himself wrote: "We have the tree, the bench, the house, but what interests me, the most difficult thing, is what surrounds these objects. How are we to hold everything together? Nobody has it like Cézanne" (quoted in Dora Perez-Tibi, Dufy, New York, 1989, pp. 40-41). 

Jacques Lassaigne writes of Dufy’s evolving style: “To the pure colors of nascent Fauvism he added an original strain, a spray of subtle shadings in pink, green, and blue that enabled him to overstep the real world, re-echoing it as he pleased. When at last they are in the air, new movements in painting lead to simultaneous experiment on all sides, and the tribute he paid to the revolutionary work of Matisse must not blind us to the advance Dufy had already made along these lines” (Jacques Lassaigne, Dufy, Biographical and Critical Studies (The Taste of our Time), Paris, 1954, p. 22).