Matisse, Henri

including his two still-lifes painted for his patron Sergei Shchukin, discussing the promising sketch that he had shared with her, which he asks her to keep, and his start on work on the painting itself, arranging for their framing and transport and expressing doubts about the first of the two paintings, reporting the sights he has seen in the public square that will help him with further work for Shchukin, namely the decorations for his palace in Moscow (confessing that the commission filled him with dread), asking her to check the contract with the dealer Bernheim for the sizes of the canvases involved ("...2 toiles d'environ 40? Si oui télégraphie: 2 toiles 40 environ, si non..."), explaining that he would like to ship them from Seville, for which he needs frames, and also discusses painting a landscape of palm trees viewed from his window; he tells her he has written to Leo Stein and Sembat, asks if she has seen Olga Meerson, reports his time staying at the elegant club of the painter Auguste Bréal, his depression, disturbed sleep in the noisy club and hotel, explaining why he cannot return home to Issy, two days by train, since he finds the sunshine in Seville conducive to his work (something impossible in Issy), tells her that staying with Etienne Terrus did him a power of good, and discusses travel plans, when she might visit him in Seville and whether to bring Albert Marquet, organizing tickets for her, when she might pay the rent in Issy, lamenting the lack of letters from her, and urging her to write something to him, even about trivial matters every day ("...J'ai travaillé à ma deuxième nature-morte aujourd'hui, j'ai commence à peindre,  la composition est bonne nous verrons la peinture. Tu me disais dans ta lettre que ça avait l'air de marcher d'après mon croquis. C'est vrais il est bien, aussi je t'ai-je dis de la garder..."); in his two letters from Moscow, Matisse describes being treated with great acclamation by the Russians, whom he hopes will maintain their interest, and the great hospitality of Olga Meerson's family, Shchukin's cousin Ostroukhov, and Mmes Vogt and Vova, who took him to a cabaret and to the mountains where Napoleon had viewed Moscow burning, and his desire to see an opera, although it is by Rimsky-Korsakov,

34 pages, 4to and 8vo, closely written (including vertically in the margins), including a note written on a Moscow newspaper, Madrid (printed stationery of the Hotel Inglés), Seville ("Círculo de Labradores y Propietarios") and Moscow, 1 January to 2 December 1911 (some dated 1910, apparently in error and corrected by the author)

Spurling, ii, pp.58-63, 80-81 (and plate 6).

This visit to southern Spain, beginning in October 1910, was an important stage in Henri Matisse's development as an artist, although he suffered greatly from depression and insomnia whilst there.  He was stimulated by the colours and textiles of the Moorish art that he found in Cordoba, Granada and Seville, where he mainly stayed.  Working on commissions of his great Russian patron Serghei Shchukin (1854-1936), for whom he had painted La Danse, the most important works discussed here are the Seville Still Life and the Spanish Still Life, both of which are now in the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.  The pictures are dominated by the rich colours of Moorish fabrics thrown over sofas and tables. Matisse expresses doubts about the first of these ("...j'ai terminé le 2^eme nature morte de Shschoukine je pense que la 1^re est insuffisante"); although he does not clearly identify here which one he means, it seems to be the Seville Still Life.  Most of the letters from Seville are written on the printed stationery of Auguste Bréal's club, the "Círculo de Labradores y Propietarios de Sevilla", patronized mainly by local landowners and aristocrats. Matisse later travelled with Shchukin to Moscow to see the salons in his house (the old Trubetskoy Palace), where his patron displayed his works. After the Russian Revolution, Shchukin escaped to live in Paris, while his palace became the State Museum of New Western Art in Moscow.