Full-Length Portrait of Madame Matisse in a Mantilla

The woman in the black Spanish shawl is Amelie, the painter's wife and, for two decades, his most patient model. Matisse posed her in this mantilla in 1911, a year he spent mostly in his studio outside Paris, building the large interiors of flat, saturated colour that made his name. The year ended with his first journey to Morocco. The portrait holds both moods at once. The pose is upright and formal, close to an old Spanish court portrait, while the shawl and the wall behind her loosen into broad patches of paint that barely settle into a room. Amelie stands still at the centre, the lace laid over her hair like a costume put on for the sitting. Through the 1920s, once he had settled in Nice, hired models would take the place she holds here.