Lot Essay
Wanda de Guébriant has confirmed the authenticity of this painting.
Matisse painted Jeune fille à la fenêtre in Nice in 1921, during one of the many sojourns he made to the south of France between 1916 and 1932. Never before had Matisse's physical environment contributed so significantly to the appearance of his art as during the Nice period. With its pale, golden tonalities and warm light, Jeune fille à la fenêtre exemplifies the canvases of these years. The seductive character of Nice permeates these pictures, prompting Dominique Fourcade to ask, "Could what happened to Matisse's art between 1917 and 1930--when he lived in this city, this site, its ambience, not to mention its light--have taken place elsewhere?" (D. Fourcade, exh. cat., Henri Matisse: The Early Years in Nice, 1916-1930, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1986, p. 50).
Matisse spent the winter and spring of 1918-1919, 1919-1920 and 1920-1921 at the Hôtel Méditerranée et de la Côte d'Azur at 25 promenade des Anglaises, Nice. The present picture was painted during the third stay, in a sun-lit room with large windows, French doors and a terrace overlooking the full sweep of the baie des Anges. This room proved a fertile environment for Matisse; as he later recalled:
An old and good hotel, of course! And what pretty Italian-style ceilings! What tiling! It was wrong to demolish the building. I stayed there four years [sic] for the pleasure of painting nudes and figures in an old rococo sitting room. Do you remember the light we had through the shutters? It came from below as if from theater footlights. Everything was fake, absurd, amazing, delicious. (Quoted in J. Cowart, exh. cat., op. cit., Washington, D. C., 1986, p. 24)
Charles Vildrac, who visited Matisse at the Hôtel Méditerranée, has written:
I went to see Matisse once in that room in Nice which looks out on the promenade and on the sea and which he has since left. I knew most of the paintings that he painted there these last years. Therefore I found the high window and its curtains, the red rug and its decoration, the "toad" armchair in which Matisse often placed the nude model... I recognized the decorated porcelain vase and the lacquered dressing table with the oval mirror. Without a doubt, I found myself in the room "of the Matisse paintings"...
[But] this room wasn't as big as I had thought; I had gotten the impression from certain canvases that one could walk in it freely, with great strides, dance in it with ease; actually, it was all lengthwise, quite cluttered and the window took up the better part of its width. Besides, I had to realize that the painter had given it a fresh and entirely submissive soul, like flowers are to the variations of the sky, a soul which in reality it did not have; it was certainly a pleasant hotel room, but with the soul of a hotel room...
Didn't Matisse paint this window, these curtains saturated with light, this red rug, this furniture, the same day as when some magician had created this room with the stroke of a wand, while each object, occupying the only place that suited its shape, its volume, its color, had just ingeniously and for the first time offered up its grace to the light? (Quoted in ibid., p. 26)
The model for Jeune fille à la fenêtre was probably Henriette Darricarrère, Matisse's principal inspiration from the time of their first meeting in 1920 until 1927; her sculpturesque body and sensitive profile can be clearly discerned here. According to Jack Cowart, Henriette would "incarnate the artistic and psychological atmosphere of these niçoises years" (ibid., p. 26). The present picture is an intimate portrayal of her, captured in a moment of reverie as she turns to look out of Matisse's window at the glittering bay beyond.
Matisse painted Jeune fille à la fenêtre in Nice in 1921, during one of the many sojourns he made to the south of France between 1916 and 1932. Never before had Matisse's physical environment contributed so significantly to the appearance of his art as during the Nice period. With its pale, golden tonalities and warm light, Jeune fille à la fenêtre exemplifies the canvases of these years. The seductive character of Nice permeates these pictures, prompting Dominique Fourcade to ask, "Could what happened to Matisse's art between 1917 and 1930--when he lived in this city, this site, its ambience, not to mention its light--have taken place elsewhere?" (D. Fourcade, exh. cat., Henri Matisse: The Early Years in Nice, 1916-1930, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1986, p. 50).
Matisse spent the winter and spring of 1918-1919, 1919-1920 and 1920-1921 at the Hôtel Méditerranée et de la Côte d'Azur at 25 promenade des Anglaises, Nice. The present picture was painted during the third stay, in a sun-lit room with large windows, French doors and a terrace overlooking the full sweep of the baie des Anges. This room proved a fertile environment for Matisse; as he later recalled:
An old and good hotel, of course! And what pretty Italian-style ceilings! What tiling! It was wrong to demolish the building. I stayed there four years [sic] for the pleasure of painting nudes and figures in an old rococo sitting room. Do you remember the light we had through the shutters? It came from below as if from theater footlights. Everything was fake, absurd, amazing, delicious. (Quoted in J. Cowart, exh. cat., op. cit., Washington, D. C., 1986, p. 24)
Charles Vildrac, who visited Matisse at the Hôtel Méditerranée, has written:
I went to see Matisse once in that room in Nice which looks out on the promenade and on the sea and which he has since left. I knew most of the paintings that he painted there these last years. Therefore I found the high window and its curtains, the red rug and its decoration, the "toad" armchair in which Matisse often placed the nude model... I recognized the decorated porcelain vase and the lacquered dressing table with the oval mirror. Without a doubt, I found myself in the room "of the Matisse paintings"...
[But] this room wasn't as big as I had thought; I had gotten the impression from certain canvases that one could walk in it freely, with great strides, dance in it with ease; actually, it was all lengthwise, quite cluttered and the window took up the better part of its width. Besides, I had to realize that the painter had given it a fresh and entirely submissive soul, like flowers are to the variations of the sky, a soul which in reality it did not have; it was certainly a pleasant hotel room, but with the soul of a hotel room...
Didn't Matisse paint this window, these curtains saturated with light, this red rug, this furniture, the same day as when some magician had created this room with the stroke of a wand, while each object, occupying the only place that suited its shape, its volume, its color, had just ingeniously and for the first time offered up its grace to the light? (Quoted in ibid., p. 26)
The model for Jeune fille à la fenêtre was probably Henriette Darricarrère, Matisse's principal inspiration from the time of their first meeting in 1920 until 1927; her sculpturesque body and sensitive profile can be clearly discerned here. According to Jack Cowart, Henriette would "incarnate the artistic and psychological atmosphere of these niçoises years" (ibid., p. 26). The present picture is an intimate portrayal of her, captured in a moment of reverie as she turns to look out of Matisse's window at the glittering bay beyond.