Cezanne stayed in the fishing village of L'Estaque during the Franco-Prussian war, and painted nearly two dozen paintings of the town. In 1876 he described the village in a letter to his friend and fellow painter Pissaro saying, “It is like a playing card. Red roofs over the blue sea. . . . The sun is so terrific here that it seems to me as if the objects were silhouetted not only in black and white, but in blue, red, brown, and violet.”
