Flannery Gallagher
Cataloguer
PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF HARRY AND RUTH WECHSLER
Lot 10
HENRI MATISSE(1869-1954)Femme assise en robe de fleurs
Executed on July 15, 1944
Executed on July 15, 1944
7 July 2020, 13:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$118,825 inc. premium
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HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954)
Femme assise en robe de fleurs
signed and dated 'Matisse 44' (lower left); dated again '15 Juill 44' (lower right)
ink on paper
20 1/2 x 15 3/4 in (52.1 x 40 cm)
Executed on July 15, 1944
signed and dated 'Matisse 44' (lower left); dated again '15 Juill 44' (lower right)
ink on paper
20 1/2 x 15 3/4 in (52.1 x 40 cm)
Executed on July 15, 1944
Footnotes
The authenticity of this work was confirmed by the late Madame Wanda de Guébriant.
Provenance
Sale: Sotheby's New York, May 19, 1983, lot 222.
Acquired at the above sale.
Executed in the summer of 1944, Femme assise en robe de fleurs was created following Matisse's flight from Paris and subsequent move to the hilltop villa of Le Rêve in Vence, where he found a retreat from the harrowing events of the Second World War. In the vivacity, boldness and beauty of the present work, one detects no hint of the conflict which directly involved Matisse's own family; rather, the composition provides a joyous escape.
By the late 1930's Matisse increasingly favored drawing over painting, regarding his works on paper as amongst his greatest achievements. His line drawings enabled a new freedom, spontaneity and simplicity. This new emphasis on line would lead to the pivotal development of Matisse's cut-outs, a new ground between drawing and color. By varying the thickness and pressure of his pen, Matisse found he could evoke variations of color in an apparently monochrome sketch. Far from being preparatory works of lesser nobility than canvas, Matisse regarded them as a lesson in restraint: "My line drawing is the purest and most direct translation of my emotion. Simplification of means allows that. But those drawings are more complete than they appear to some people who confuse them with a sketch. They generate light; looked at in poor, or indirect light, they contain not only quality and sensibility, but also light and difference in values corresponding obviously to colour... Once I have put my emotion to line and modeled the light of my white paper, without destroying its endearing whiteness, I can add or take away nothing further" (Matisse quoted in Matisse as a Draughtsman (exhibition catalogue), Victor I. Carlson (ed.), Baltimore, 1971, p. 18).
Our attention is drawn to the three large flowers adorning the model's dress in the present work by the suddenly heavier pen strokes. The pattern of the dress forms a greater focus than the sitter herself, who although nonchalant and confidently posed, is rendered with the most minimal of lines. The palm frond-like design of her dress cascades towards us, waves of fabric echoed in the circles of bracelets around both wrists. The composition is united by these sweeps of ink curls that animate the paper. "The arabesque," explained the artist in 1952, "is the most synthetic way to express oneself in all one's aspects. It translates the totality of things with a sign. It makes all the phrases into a single phrase" (Matisse quoted in J. Flam, (ed.), Matisse on Art, Berkeley, 1995, pp. 210-211).
