Albert Loeb and Krugier, New York
Saidenberg Gallery, New York
Galerie Jan Krugier, Geneva
Cars Canfield Collection, New York
James Goodman Gallery, New York
Jeffrey Hoffeld and Co., Inc., New York
Sale: Christie's London, December 4, 1990, lot 131
Acquired at the above sale

Executed on cream wove paper laid down on paper; second sheet is hinged to a mount at top two corner. Half inch mat stain around the perimeter. Top, right and left edges are deckled. Pindot-size stains near extreme edges. Small flecks throughout sheet that appear to be inherent to the paper. Good condition.
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 Among all the subjects in Matisse's oeuvre, the odalisque is his best known and most beloved. The allure of this exotic figure, often depicted in various states of nudity, was of insatiable appeal to the artist. In 1929, a year before the execution of the present work, when he was asked why he chose the subject of odalisques and in order to deny that these paintings and drawings are fantasies, Matisse replied: "I do odalisques in order to do nudes. But how does one do the nude without it being artificial? Because I know that odalisques exist. I was in Morocco. I have seen them." (John Elderfield, The Drawings of Henri Matisse (exhibition catalogue), Hayward Gallery, London 1984, p.83). Throughout his career, Matisse devoted numerous compositions to imag🙈es of this paradigm of female sensuality, depicting her seated in a richly upholstered armchair or reclining on a bed.

In the current work, the artist poses the figure semi-nude reclining with her arm above her head, a position that appeared in several of his paintings, drawings and sculptures of this period. The artist himself once made the following remarks with regard to the subject that arguably dominates his oeuvre: "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 color" (quoted in Jack Flam (ed.), Matisse: A Retrospective, New York, 1988, p. 230).