Estate of the artist
Thomas Ammann Fine Art, Zurich
C & M Arts, New York (acquired after 1993)
Acquired by the present owner circa 2000

London, Waddington Galleries, Henri Matisse, Edgar Degas, 1989, no. 6, illustrated in the catalogue

Executed on cream wove paper, not laid down, hinged to the mount in the top two corners, floating in the mount. All four edges are deckled. There are artist's pinholes to all four corners. Apart from some very light time staining to the extreme edges of the sheet, this work is in good original condition.
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Among all the subjects in Matisse's œuvre, 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. Throughout his career, Matisse devoted several compositions to images of this paradigm of female sensuality, depicting her seated in a richly upholstered armchair or reclining on a bed.

In this drawing from 1928, he has rendered two of these temptresses, lounging in what appears to be an ornately decorated harem. The setting for this drawing was most likely one of his hotel rooms in Nice, where the artist lived periodically throughout the 1920s. Fascinated with both the textile patterns of the furniture and the wallpaper, as well as the curves and contours of the female body, Matisse is able to exercise several of his aesthetic predilections in this exquisite drawing.