Provenance
Sold by the artist to the Paul Rosenberg Gallery, New York, by winter 1929 [Ilda François, Paul Rosenberg and Company, to James Glisson, email, June 7, 2011 in curatorial file]; sold to Dorothy Braude Edinburg, June 23, 1964 [invoice]; given to the Art Institute, 1998.
Accession Number
150816
Medium
Pen and black ink over graphite on cream wove paper
Dimensions
49.4 × 31.2 cm (19 1/2 × 12 5/16 in.)
Classification
pen and ink drawings
Credit Line
Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Background & Context
Background Story
Henri Matisse's Madame Matisse with Her Fan (1906) is a pen and black ink drawing over graphite on cream wove paper, depicting the artist's wife, Amelie Matisse, holding a fan. The fan, a fashionable accessory of the period, frames the lower part of the face and adds an elegant note to the composition. Matisse's pen and ink technique is confident and flowing, the lines defining Amelie's features with a combination of precision and freedom. This portrait dates from 1906, just after the triumph of the Fauvist exhibition at the 1905 Salon d'Automne. The Fauvist revolution had established Matisse as the leader of the avant-garde, and this drawing of his wife shows him working with a new confidence and authority.
Cultural Impact
Matisse's portraits of his wife Amelie are among the most intimate works of his career, documenting the woman who supported and sustained him through the struggles and triumphs of his early years.
Why It Matters
This pen and ink portrait of Madame Matisse captures both the elegance of its subject and the confidence of the artist at the height of his Fauvist breakthrough.
