Cézanne painted four oil portraits of this Italian boy in the red vest (in British English, a
waistcoat), all in different poses, which allowed him to study the relationship between the figure and space. The most famous of the four, and the one commonly referred to by this title, is the one which depicts the boy in a melancholic seated pose with his elbow on a table and his head cradled in his hand. It is currently held in
Zürich,
Switzerland. The other three portraits, of different poses, are in museums in the US. The painting was subsequently reproduced in publications all over the world, along with articles about it.-->This painting was acquired from Cézanne by art dealer
Ambroise Vollard, probably in 1895, and successively acquired by art collectors
Marcell Nemes in 1909 and
Gottlieb Reber in 1913. Art collector and patron
Emil Georg Bührle purchased it from Reber in 1948. Following Bührle's death in 1956, his heirs donated the painting to the Foundation E.G. Bührle in 1960. In February 2008, the painting was
stolen from the Foundation E.G. Bührle in Zurich. It was the museum's most valuable painting and was valued at $91 million. It was recovered in
Serbia in April 2012. ==Other three paintings==