Henri Matisse

Family of the artist
Lumley Cazalet Ltd., London
Acquired from the above by the present owner

London, Lumley Cazalet Ltd., Henri Matisse, Drawings 1914-1952, 2000, no. 7, illustrated in the catalogue

Claude Roger-Marx, Les Dessins d'Henri Matisse, Paris, 1939, no. 25
Frantisek Dvorak, Henri Matisse Kresby, Prague, 1962, illustrated pl. 24
Raoul-Jean Moulin, Henri Matisse. Drawings and Paper Cut-outs, London, 1969, illustrated pl. 24 (titled Young Girl in an Armchair)
Pierre Schneider, Matisse, London, 1984, illustrated p. 160
Lydia Delectorskaya, Henri Matisse … L’apparente facilité…, Paris, 1986, illustrated p. 222
Lydia Delectorskaya, Henri Matisse. Contre vents et marées, Paris, 1996, no. 27, illustrated p. 232 (titled Robe bleue en taffetas)
Catherine Hockley, 'Round the Galleries. A Selection of Current Exhibitions and Works of Art on the Market', in Apollo, June 2000, illustrated p. 58
Pierre Schneider, Matisse, Paris, 2002, illustrated p. 160 and illustrated on the dust jacket

Jeune fille à la robe au jabot of 1937 is a magnificently lavish portrait of Lydia Delectorskaya executed at the height of Matisse’s career. Combining the two most important elements of his art – that of the female figure and that of patterning and decoration – this is a highly accomplished drawing related to his monumental oil La Grande robe bleue et mimosas in the collects ion of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (fig. 1), painted in Nice between February and April of the same year. Matisse’s works of the 1930s are largely devoted to the subject of a female figure in an interior setting. Two women dominate in these portraits: Hélène Galitzine and the artist’s muse Lydia Delectorskaya, both of Russian origin. In some works these figures are painted in the nude, evoking Matisse’s earlier orientalist-inspired Odalisques, in others they are shown in elaborate, heavily ornamented dresses or cost.mes s. Although strongly stylised, and depicted with no attempt at anatomical naturalism, Matisse’s portraits and figures were usually painted from live models posing for him, as documented in numerous photographs of the artist’s muses in his studio (fig. 2).

Lydia Delectorskaya became Matisse’s studio assistant when he was working on a commission for the Barnes Foundation in 1933, and in the following year she was hired as a companion to the ailing Madame Matisse. In 1935 Lydia began posing for Matisse, and continued her collaboration with the artist until his death in 1954. Constantly present in Matisse’s studio, Delectorskaya was able to assemble a large number of documents recording his production during this t.mes , published in 1986 in her book Henri Matisse … l’apparente facilité… . During this period, Matisse himself used to document his work in photographs, later donated to Delectorskaya, tracing his progress while working on major oils. Among these is a series of photographs recording various states of La Grande robe bleue et mimosas, started on 26^th February and finished on 2^nd April 1937.

The present drawing was executed in the early days of 1937, in Matisse’s studio at no. 1, place Charles-Félix in Nice, where he stayed from October 1936 until April 1937. Having spent many years dividing his t.mes between Paris and Nice, Matisse first took this apartment in 1921, and retained it until 1938, transforming it with paintings, mirrors, curtains and decorative screens. Matisse’s production of 1936 and 1937 was dominated by a series of decorative paintings and drawings of models in elaborate cost.mes s, somet.mes s surrounded by flowers or plants, at other t.mes s by patterns and wallpapers, often with walls decorated with what resembles Matisse’s own paintings and drawings. The sumptuous blue dress in which Lydia posed for the artist inspired a series of works, including a study in oil (fig. 3), the final, large oil version (fig. 1), as well as a number of pencil studies focusing on the details of the dress (for example fig. 4).

Pierre Schneider explained how the artist’s early childhood exposure to textile and fabric decoration led to a lifelong fascination: ‘The textile arts had been close to Matisse since his childhood. In the towns and villages of the Cambrésis and Vermandois districts, during the winter months when there was no work in the fields, people wove. Many families owned looms. The townspeople of Bohain did weaving for the firm of Rodier, either with designs suggested by the firms or patterns created by themselves […] The 1900 Exposition, with its Turkish, Persian, Moroccan, Egyptian, and colonial pavilions, in which suks and bazaars had been reconstructed, offered him many opportunities to see rugs, fabrics, and ceramics’ (P. Schneider, op. cit., p. 164). ‘The fabric conveys color and arabesque as well as geometric motif and surface. As such it attracted Matisse, and disturbed him, for it drew him into regions where a “realistic” representation, to which he was likewise attached, threatened to become impossible’ (ibid., p. 170).

Fig. 1, Henri Matisse, La Grande robe bleue et mimosas, 1937, oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Fig. 2, Henri Matisse, photograph of Lydia Delectorskaya in the dress she is wearing in the present work

Fig. 3, Henri Matisse, La Robe bleue reflétée dans la glace. Esquisse, 1937, oil on canvas, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Kyoto

Fig. 4, Henri Matisse, Etude pour La Grande robe bleue et mimosas, 1937, Private collects ion