Oil on canvas, framed. Featuring woman in blue dress sitting on a blue chair with her back turned toward the viewer. Signed Henri Matisse near bottom left corner. Verso features a half-naked man in blue pants leaning with his head on his left arm. Attributed to Henri Matisse (1869-1954, French). 91 x 65 cm (35.8 x 25.6 inches)

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was one of the most influential French artists of the 20th century. Matisse’s use of unmodulated color, inventive figuration, and decorative patterns helped redefine many of the formal tenets of painting. “What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter,” he once said. Born Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse on December 31, 1869 in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France, he took to art relatively late in life after initially pursuing law. First studying painting under Gustave Moreau at the École des Beaux-Arts, he quickly adopted the Pointillist ideas espoused by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. With Pointillism as a point of departure, Matisse along with Albert Marquet and André Derain, developed a radical method of using pure color to express light, in what became known as Fauvism. Matisse would return to a style which incorporated both naturalistic and decorative elements, as evinced in his painting Goldfish (1911). In the decades that followed, the artist spent much of his time in the South of France, painting models dressed as odalisques and ocean views from his hotel room. Late in his career, while bedridden, Matisse produced a number of cutout paper works, including Blue Nude II (1952). The artist died on November 3, 1954 in Nice, France. In 2018, the artist’s Odalisqque couchée aux magnolias (1923) sold for $80,750,000 at Christie’s, an auction record for Matisse. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the National Gallery in London, among others.

All lots that do not carry established documented provenance nor any past record of auction history record are described in the catalog as attributed .

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Signed [Artist Name] : In cases in which the signature is legible in the lot, this work is described as-is with no attributions given.

By [Artist Name] : The work is by the artist.

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In the manner of [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but was designed deliberately to emulate the style of the artist.

After [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but is a deliberate copy of a known work by the artist.

Circle of [Artist Name] : A work of the period of the artist showing his influence, closely associated with the artist but not necessarily his pupil.

Follower of [Artist Name]: A work by a pupil or a follower of the artist (not necessarily a pupil).

American, 19th century : This work was executed by an unknown hand, and can only be identified by origin (i.e., region, period).