Camille Pissarro, whom Cézanne came to see as both friend and mentor, moved to Pontoise, a small country town northwest of Paris, in 1872 after his previous country residence in Louveciennes, west of Paris, was stripped of all its contents while he was in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War two years earlier. The following year, Cézanne moved to neighboring Auvers-sur-Oise, where he and Pissarro lived within walking distance of each other, and often painted side by side in plein air. They painted the same subjects, but in different and distinctive works.
