Torse à L'aiguière / Torso With the Ewer 1927 HS

Year1927

Hand SignedSigned And Numbered in Pencil Lower Right 

Condition Excellent 

Purchased fromAuction House 2021 

Provenance / HistoryThe stock of Henri M Petiet, Paris. The dealers stamp H.M.P in an oval, verso. Petiet was one of the most famous art dealers of Paris in the post war era. He bought the stock of Vollard on that dealers untimely death and proceeded to become one of the leading print dealers in Paris. 

Story / Additional InfoTitle: Torse à l’Aiguière (Torso with the Ewer). In 1922 Matisse, who had made almost no lithographs since 1914, embarked on a series of nudes inspired with an Oriental theme. He had travelled in Arab lands and employed Islamic decor surrounding these. By the end of 1925 he had made almost 50 prints averaging around 10 a year. His depiction of the female figures were described as as “Odalisques”. They are nude or scantily clothed models often dressed in summer frocks as they sit beside bouquets of flowers or recline on couches. An odalisque (Turkish: odalık ) was a chambermaid or a female attendant in a Turkish seraglio, particularly the court ladies in the household of the Ottoman Sultan. If an odalık was of extraordinary beauty or had exceptional talents in dancing or singing, she would be trained as a possible concubine. 

Certificate of AuthenticityArt Brokerage 

LID146368

Henri Matisse - France

Art Brokerage: Henri Matisse French Artist: b. 1869-1954. He was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the twentieth century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Although he was initially labeled a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art. Listings wanted by Art Brokerage.