Cézanne used this plain, linen-bound sketchbook for roughly a decade (1875-85) at a time when he was particularly engaged with drawing. It includes studies of the Provençal landscape, Paris rooftops, and informal portraits of his wife, son, and friends, such as Pissarro and Émile Zola. On other pages Cézanne depicted objects in Zola’s house in Médan, revealing the intimacy of their friendship, which would be sundered by Zola’s publication of L’oeuvre (The Masterpiece) in 1886.