Paul Alexis lisant à Émile Zola

Cezanne began this around 1869, soon after his fellow Aix native Paul Alexis turned up in Paris to join their boyhood friend Emile Zola, who was becoming a force in French letters. It shows Alexis reading a manuscript aloud while Zola listens, sprawled on the ground. Then in 1870 the Franco-Prussian War broke out, Cezanne left the capital for Provence, and the picture was never finished. You can see where he stopped. Zola's body is barely blocked in, and the pages in Alexis's hand trail off into bare canvas, as if the text were still being written. It stayed in the family for decades and now hangs in Sao Paulo.