Odalisca, armonia in rosso

There was no harem. Matisse painted this in a third-floor apartment in Nice in 1926, in a corner he had fitted out himself with a low couch, folding screens, mirrors and bolts of patterned cloth to conjure the North Africa he had seen years before in Morocco. The woman on the divan is almost certainly Henriette Darricarriere, a young neighbour trained in ballet and music who modelled for him right through the 1920s and sat for one odalisque after another. The title points at what he cared about most: the red, pulled across the wall and the couch until the figure and the room share one warm key. The patterned cloth behind her is doing as much work in the picture as she is.