1900-1904: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
When their mother died in 1897, Cézanne's sister Marie took charge of settling Cézanne's affairs and agreed to the sale of Jas de Bouffan. This changed the pattern of Cézanne's life, depriving him of his one settled home and the centre of his painting life. Henceforward, from 1899 until almost the end of his life, he lived unhappily, something of a displaced person in a number of different rented accommodations. The Chateau Noir, halfway between Aix and Le Tholonet was where he rented a small room from which he went on painting expeditions looking for a motif within its rocky wooded grounds. In order to find a permanent location he offered to buy the chateau but was refused.
