Henri Matisse

The artist's family
Lumley Cazalet, London (acquired from the above by 1984)
Waddington Galleries, London
Private Collection, United States (and sold: Sotheby's, New York, November 13, 1997, lot 142)
A. Alfred Taubman, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Acquired from the estate of the above by the present owner

This work is in overall very good condition. Executed on cream colored wove paper, not laid down. Top edge is glued to a mount on verso of the upper corners. Watermark visible along extreme right edge. Evidence of artist's pinholes which have been filled in at each of the corners. Sheet is lightly time stained, particularly along the edges. Evidence of some minor frame abrasion along the top edge. A few faint scattered spots of foxing and some minor flattened creases in the upper corners. A small nick to the surface of the paper in the upper left quadrant just to the left of the leaves. A 1cm-long repaired tear and a 0.5cm tear running horizontally from the right edge. Sheet is floating in its mount, otherwise fine.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

"Drawing does not depend on forms being copied exactly as they are in nature or on the patient assembling of exact details, but on the profound feeling of the artist before the objects that he has chosen, on which his attention is focused."

—Henri Matisse quoted in Jack Flam, ed., Matisse on Art, Berkeley, 1995, p. 179

Nature morte au lierre of 1915 is an impressive large-scale work, combining the sensuousness and rounded forms of Matisse's celebrated Variations on a Still Life by de Heem (1915, Museum of Modern Art, New York) with a Cézanne-esque treatment of the picture plane. Although not a direct study for Matisse's variation of the de Heem painting, the present work incorporates many of the same artistic principles addressed in other seventeenth-century studies of this period. The bold outline and subtle shading created by the use of charcoal and estompe in the present work, combined with the imposing scale, result in a monumentality that transcends the medium of a work on paper. 

"The newly monumental version of organic form that Matisse discovered in this period (and which climaxed in the great still-life paintings of 1916) owes its particular density to the increased gravity of his line, but also to a change in the manner of his visual address to objects.... As with Cubist drawing, the intervals between the parts are as conclusively present as the parts themselves, for it is in those intervals that the rigorously defined space forces itself on our imagination. Of course, Matisse had always paid attention to the pictoriality of the white ground. But now it is tensely charged in quite a new way, as positive and negative areas interchange in expressive importance" (John Elderfield, The Drawings of Henri Matisse, London, 1984, p. 68).

A combination of graceful, restrained lines and sensuously blended charcoal, Nature morte au lierre is a wonderful example of Matisse’s mature drawing style. Throughout the 1910s Matisse drew extensively, developing the estompe technique. This use of charcoal enabled Matisse to imbue his works with a masterful blend of smoky shadow and tremulous luminosity. The technique freed Matisse from the rigors of strict representation, creating a looser physicality that became an expression of feeling.