Nu drapé

By 1936 Matisse had just come through several exhausting years on a single commission, the vast mural of dancers for Albert Barnes's house in Pennsylvania, which had swallowed his energy since 1930. Back in his Nice apartment he returned to the thing he trusted most, a model in a chair, and worked quickly. This is the second of four canvases he painted that spring, all the same modest size. In a few flowing lines he sets the woman's body against the edges of the frame, her arms echoing its shape and her left hand hanging limply over the chair. The gown and the limbs are traced rather than modelled, the colour laid on flat. He was 66, and working small again after working enormous.