Interior with an Etruscan Vase (Intérieur au vase étrusque)

In 1946 this canvas surfaced at the Munich Central Collection Point, the depot where the Allies gathered art the Nazis had taken, and was sent back to its owner. Matisse had painted it in Nice early in 1940, about six months into the war, in his studio flat in the former Hôtel Régina. A woman sits at a dark table with an open book and scattered fruit, hemmed in by potted philodendrons, with a big orange antique vase at the right. He told a friend in a letter that painting gave him the balance he needed to withstand what was happening beyond the studio. That same year the picture was with his dealer Paul Rosenberg in Bordeaux, and the Nazi looting agency known as the ERR seized it. By 1941 it belonged to Hermann Göring, who traded it to the German dealer Gustav Rochlitz. After its return it passed through a Chicago collection and the New York gallery of Matisse's son Pierre before Cleveland acquired it in 1952.