Giovane ragazza con il vaso di fiori

After the First World War, Matisse settled into long winters in Nice, renting hotel and apartment rooms above the Mediterranean, and his painting quieted right down. The fierce, flat colour of his early Fauve years gave way to soft interiors like this one, a young woman in a patterned room with a vase of flowers, a mirror, and the mild southern light he had gone there to find. He treated these rooms almost like stage sets, shifting models, screens and fabrics around until the arrangement pleased him. This canvas dates from around 1920 and belonged to the Paris dealer Paul Guillaume, an early champion of Matisse. His collection, kept together by his widow, now hangs in the Orangerie in Paris.