Caught in a storm

There is a romantic story that Cézanne died at his easel, in front of Mont Sainte-Victoire, brush in hand, painting the mountain to the last. It is a lovely image and it is not what happened, so here is the documented version, which is moving enough without the embroidery.

On 15 October 1906, Cézanne was out painting and was caught in a storm. He worked on for a couple of hours, then started for home, collapsed on the way, and was carried back by a passing laundry-cart driver. He developed pneumonia. He rallied enough to go out and paint once more, a portrait of his gardener Vallier, fainted again, was put to bed, and died on 22 October 1906, aged sixty-seven. He was buried in Aix.

Notice what the record does and does not say. He was out painting in the field near Les Lauves when the storm caught him; the documents do not say he was painting Mont Sainte-Victoire at that exact moment, and it is the fusion of those two facts that produced the legend of the death at the easel before the mountain. The true account is plainer and just as good: an old man who would not stop working got caught in the weather, and it killed him within the week.