Paul Cézanne
Cezanne's first Paris address, at what was then 39 rue d'Enfer in the 9th and is now the rue Bleue. He arrived in April 1861 and gave up and returned to Aix in September.
39 rue Bleue
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
Where Paul Cézanne lodged when he arrived in Paris in 1861 at twenty-two, having finally won his banker father's permission to paint — and where he lasted a matter of months before retreating to Aix.
- 39 rue Bleue, 75009 Paris
- Cézanne's first Paris address, 1861
The place, briefly
Paul Cézanne came to Paris in April 1861. His father, a hat-maker turned banker in Aix, had wanted him in law and then in the family bank, and had resisted the idea of painting for years. Émile Zola, his schoolfriend from Aix, was already in Paris and had been writing to him relentlessly to come.
He took a room at 39 rue d'Enfer, in the 9th — a street since renamed the rue Bleue. The name causes confusion, because the famous rue d'Enfer was on the Left Bank and became the avenue Denfert-Rochereau; this was a different street of the same name.
The visit went badly. He drew at the Académie Suisse, was intimidated by the standard around him, quarrelled with Zola, and by September he had given up and gone home to Aix to work in his father's bank. He lasted about five months.
He came back. The pattern of his life is this shuttle — Paris and Aix, arrival and retreat, repeated for forty years — and it starts at this door.
Key facts
- April to September 1861
- rue d'Enfer — now the rue Bleue
- The Left Bank rue d'Enfer, now avenue Denfert-Rochereau
- He lost his nerve after five months and went back to Aix to work in his father's bank
- Private — exterior only
Timeline
Cézanne arrives in Paris in April and lodges at 39 rue d'Enfer.
He abandons Paris in September and returns to Aix.
He comes back to Paris and begins again.
On the map
Questions before you go
Where did Cézanne first live in Paris?
At 39 rue d'Enfer in the 9th arrondissement, now 39 rue Bleue, from April 1861. He stayed about five months before returning to Aix.
Is this the same rue d'Enfer as the one near Denfert-Rochereau?
No. Two Paris streets carried the name. This one, in the 9th, became the rue Bleue; the Left Bank rue d'Enfer became the avenue Denfert-Rochereau and part of the boulevard Saint-Michel.
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