Henri Matisse

Josse and Gaston Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the artist on 18th April 1923)
Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the above on 3rd November 1933)
Albert Sarrault, Paris (acquired from the above on 6th March 1934)
Clare Boothe Luce, U.S.A.
Marlborough Fine Arts Ltd., London (circa 1955)
Mr Cooper, New York
Sale: Galerie Motte, Geneva, 8th December 1970, lot 47
H. Dudley Wright, U.S.A. (acquired by 1988)

Probably painted during one of Matisse’s frequent sojourns in Nice, Torse nu belongs to his celebrated series of orientalist-inspired nudes. The sitter of the present work appears to be Henriette Darricarrère, Matisse’s favourite model of his Nice portraits, usually depicted as a joyful, sensual semi-nude in a domestic setting. In some compositions, she is seen reclining on a divan, or sitting in an armchair, in others, like the present work, standing with her arms raised above her head, with an air of sensual abandon. In the early 1920s, Matisse painted a number of Odalisques, whose exotic costumes and lavishly ornamented interiors evoke the artist’s travels in Morocco in 1912-13. As the artist himself proclaimed: "The Odalisques were the bounty of a happy nostalgia, a lovely, vivid dream, and the almost ecstatic, enchanted days and nights of the Moroccan climate. I felt an irresistible need to express that ecstasy, that divine unconcern, in corresponding colored rhythms, rhythms of sunny and lavish figures and colors" (H. Matisse, quoted in Jack Flam (ed.), Matisse: A Retrospective, New York, 1988, p. 230).

Writing about this series of Odalisques, Elizabeth Cowling commented: "In painting his make-believe harem scenes – nothing could be less authentic than the heteroclite mix of fabrics, costumes, furniture and bric-à-brac – Matisse sought to personalise and modernise the hackneyed Orientalist subjects which had first come into vogue during the Romantic period. Delacroix’s sumptuous Women of Algiers was of paramount importance to this enterprise and in the sum total of the Nice odalisque paintings numerous echoes of it can be heard, particularly in those where the model is dressed in Moorish costume" (E. Cowling, Matisse Picasso (exhibition catalogue), Tate Modern, London, 2002, p. 221).