Paul Cézanne
Cezanne took a fourth-floor apartment in Plaisance in 1877. Its patterned wallpaper appears behind Hortense Fiquet in several portraits and in a number of still lifes.
67 rue de l'Ouest
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
The fourth-floor Montparnasse apartment Paul Cézanne took in 1877, whose patterned wallpaper appears behind Hortense Fiquet in several of the portraits and stands in for a landscape in the still lifes.
- 67 rue de l'Ouest, 75014 Paris
- Cézanne's apartment and studio from 1877
The place, briefly
Paul Cézanne rented a small apartment on the fourth floor here from 1877, in Plaisance — then a poor, half-industrial quarter on the southern edge of the city.
It is identifiable in the paintings, which is unusual. The distinctive patterned wallpaper of these rooms appears behind Hortense Fiquet in portraits and forms the background of several still lifes, where its repeating motif does the work a landscape would do in another painter's picture — a flat decorative field against which the solid objects sit.
1877 was also the year he showed sixteen works at the third Impressionist exhibition and was attacked more savagely than anyone else in the group. He did not exhibit with them again. From this point his withdrawal to Aix accelerates, and Paris becomes somewhere he passes through rather than lives.
He took a second apartment on the same street, at number 32, in 1880.
Key facts
- From 1877
- A small fourth-floor flat in Plaisance
- Its patterned wallpaper appears in portraits of Hortense and in still lifes
- He showed sixteen works at the third Impressionist exhibition and was savaged
- Private — exterior only
Timeline
Cézanne takes the fourth-floor apartment and shows at the third Impressionist exhibition.
He takes a second address further along the rue de l'Ouest.
On the map
Questions before you go
Which paintings show this apartment?
Its patterned wallpaper is the background of several portraits of Hortense Fiquet and of a number of still lifes, where the repeating pattern functions almost as a landscape would.
Why did Cézanne stop exhibiting with the Impressionists?
The 1877 exhibition, his third and last with the group, drew unusually hostile criticism directed at him in particular. He withdrew and increasingly worked alone in Aix.
People who knew this place
Within walking distance
32 rue de l'Ouest
The second of Paul Cézanne's two apartments on the rue de l'Ouest, taken in April 1880 — the address he was using while Émile Zola was writing the novel that ended their friendship.
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The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.