Sheep Hill and Horrors

A 9x12 pastel of a late afternoon view at the top of Sheep Hill.

A couple anecdotes from the Jack Lindsay book on Cezanne:

He left two unfinished paintings behind in the hotel at Neuchatel, Switzerland.  Not to worry.  Lindsay reports that another painter overpainted the canvases.

His sister Marie "was doubtless responsible for the fact that one day, while he was out, the housekeeper took on herself to burn his sketches of Baigneuses.  A woman who sold wine and liqueurs on the Pace des Trois Ormeaux asked her, 'How is Monsieur?' 'Not very well'. 'Is Monsieur painting?' 'O, such horrors, I've come down from burning a whole heap of naked women.  I can't leave them for the family's sake.  What would people say?' 'But some of them may be good'.  'They're horrors'."  Who knows how accurate this story is.  Lindsay complains that the people who befriended Cezanne near the end of his life, such as Gasquet and Bernard, put their words into his mouth.  I am reminded of other situations where disciples wrote what the Master supposedly said.