Woman Reading

By 1922 Matisse had been living in Nice for a few years, and the war that had just torn through France feels very far from this room. He had turned away from bold experiment toward quiet interiors flooded with southern light, small scenes of women at rest. Here a young woman leans over her book at a round table, a vase of flowers and a little fruit beside her, the whole thing barely larger than a sheet of paper at 28 by 35 centimetres. It came to the museum in Troyes in 1976 with the collection of Pierre and Denise Lévy. On the night of 19 November 1991 it was stolen from these walls, and later recovered.