1839
Birth of Paul Cézanne on 19 January at 28, rue de l’Opéra, Aix-en-Provence, to parents Louis-Auguste Cézanne, felt hat merchant, and Anne-Elisabeth Honorine Aubert.

1841
Birth of Marie Cézanne, the artist’s sister, in Cours Mirabeau.

1844
On 29 January, Louis-Auguste Cézanne marries Anne-Elisabeth Honorine Aubert, the mother of his children.

1848
On 1st June the Cézanne & Cabassol Bank is founded at 13, rue Boulegon.

1849-1852
Cézanne is a pupil at the Ecole Saint-Joseph in Aix.

1852-1858
While a pupil at the Collège Bourbon, 2, rue Cardinale, Cézanne befriends Emile Zola (born in 1840) and Baptistin Baille.

1854
Birth of Rose, the artist’s second sister, at 14, rue Matheron.

1857
Cézanne enrolls in the free classes of the municipal art school, now the Granet Museum, and follows the courses in life drawing and copying from the antique, using as models the marbles and plaster casts in the museum’s collection.

1858
In February, Zola leaves Aix for Paris, returning for his summer holidays in later years.
In July, Cézanne fails his school-leaving certificate.
On 12 November, after retaking the exams, he gains a high school diploma with the grade “fair”.
November 1858 - August 1859, he is a keen student at the municipal art school classes.

1859
On 15 September, Louis-Auguste Cézanne buys a country estate called the Jas de Bouffan and the family moves there in around 1870.
On 19 November, Cézanne enrolls in the Faculty of Law in Aix.
Still enrolled as a student at the municipal art school, he wins a second prize for a painted study of a figure. He dreams of becoming a painter.

1860
In February, he drops out of law school.

1861
During his first stay in Paris he rejoins Zola and meets Pissarro at the Swiss Academy. After failing the entrance exam for the Ecole des Beaux-Arts he returns to Aix in September and starts work in his father’s bank.

1862
Cézanne enrolls once again at the Aix city art school, where he takes the life drawing classes.
In November he leaves the family bank and returns to Paris.

1863
He exhibits at the Salon des Refusés, works at the Swiss Academy, often meeting with Pissarro, Guillaumin and Oller. Copies works in the Louvre.

1864
He is rejected by the Salon, the first of many rejections in subsequent years. Stays for a period in L’Estaque.

1865
After a year spent in Paris, he returns in summer to Aix, where he becomes friends with Valabrègue, Marion and the German musician Heinrich Morstatt, a devotee of Wagner.

1866
Rejected yet again by the Salon, Cézanne sends a letter of protest to the Commissioner for the Fine Arts, asking that another Salon des Refusés be set up. Stays several times at Bennecourt in the Department of the Oise, in company with Zola, Baille and Valabrègue. In Aix in the fall he paints a series of works with extensive use of the palette knife (still lifes and portraits).

1869
At the Swiss Academy in Paris he meets Hortense Fiquet. They become lovers.

1870
On 31 May, he is best man at the wedding of Zola. During the Franco-Prussian War he takes refuge in l’Estaque.

1872
His son Paul is born in Paris on 4 January.

1873
Cézanne lives throughout the year at Auvers with Hortense and their son Paul. He works side by side with Pissarro and produces etchings in the studio of Dr. Gachet.

1874-1877
He takes part in the first and third exhibitions of the Impressionists.

1882
Renoir spends a few days in l’Estaque and the two artists paint the locality together. Thanks to the influence of Guillemet, Cézanne is accepted for the Salon for the first and only time in his career.

1886
Lives in Gardanne.
31 March: publication of L’Oeuvre of Emile Zola.
28 April: marries Hortense Fiquet.
Cézanne’s father dies on 23 October, leaving his estate to his children.

1887
Cézanne rents a room at Château-Noir in the pistachio tree court.

1895
From Aix, Cézanne journeys out to Mount Sainte-Victoire and the Bibémus quarries, where he rents a hut.
In November, the dealer Vollard holds at his gallery the first one-man show dedicated to Cézanne.

1897
Cézanne works at Tholonet and the Bibémus quarries.
His mother dies on 25 October.

1898
9 May - 10 June: second exhibition at the Vollard gallery.

1899
After the sale of the manor at Jas de Bouffan, Cézanne tries unsuccessfully to purchase the Château-Noir estate and moves to 23, rue Boulegon. Exhibits several pictures at the Salon des Indépendants and shows some forty works at the Vollard gallery.
At the end of the year, Vollard purchases his entire studio.

1900
In May, he takes part in the centennial exhibition of French art; Maurice Denis paints his Homage to Cézanne (Paris, Musée d’Orsay).

1901
Cézanne buys a plot of land at Les Lauves above Aix to build a studio. Takes part in the Salon des Artistes Indépendants.

1902
Takes part in the Salon des Artistes Indépendants.
In November he draws up his last will and testament, making his son his sole heir. He learns with great sadness of the death of Zola.

1903
Takes part in the Salon d’Automne for the first time.

1904
Emile Bernard visits Cézanne for the first time and in July publishes an article on the painter in ‘L’Occident’.
15 October - 15 November: an entire room is dedicated to Cézanne’s work at the Salon d’Automne.

1905
January-February: ten of Cézanne’s pictures are shown in a collective exhibition in London.
Emile Bernard visits for the last time in late March.
In June, an exhibition of watercolors at the Vollard gallery.
In Summer Cézanne works at Fontainebleau.
1st - 16 October: Emile Bernard publishes his Souvenirs sur Paul Cézanne in the ‘Mercure de France’.
19 October - 25 November: ten pictures are shown at the Salon d’Automne.

1906
15 October: Cézanne collapses while painting outside and is caught in a rainstorm for several hours. He dies in Aix on 23 October at the age of sixty-seven.

1907
The Salon d’Automne devotes a retrospective to Cézanne in which 56 of his pictures are shown.