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Lot Essay
This work is sold with a photo-certificate from Wanda de Guébriant.
During 1941 and 1942, while he was convalescing in bed in the Hôtel Régina, Matisse executed a series of works entitled the Thèmes et variations. He would begin with a charcoal drawing his Thème and then explore Variations upon that theme. In the figure drawings in this series such as Thème L Variation 15, executed in 1942, he would work in front of the original model even in the later works, but would do so in a manner that felt more casual and spontaneous than in many of his earlier works. The Thèmes et variations were in many ways the culmination of a lifetime of artistic exploration, hence Matisse's own comments to his son: 'For a year now I've been making an enormous effort in drawing. I say effort but that's a mistake, because what has occurred is a 'floraison' after fifty years of effort' (Matisse, quoted in J. Golding, 'Introduction,' pp. 10-18, J. Elderfield, The Drawings of Henri Matisse, exh.cat., London & New York, 1985, p. 16). These works, which were published in a book with a long introduction by the poet Louis Aragon, had an overarching musical character, as is hinted at by the Variations of the title, and this musicality is also reflected in the elegant and atmospheric content of the drawings, as is clear in Thème L Variation 15.
This drawing appears to show one of Matisse's favourite models of the time, Nézy-Hamidé Chawkat, a great-granddaughter of the sultan Abdul Hamid I who found herself living in exile on the Côte d'Azur. Matisse had met her while walking in Nice, and had immediately asked her to pose for him, finding that she perfectly encapsulated the lure of the oriental, of the Ottoman, that he had so often explored in his celebrated Odalisques. In Thème L Variation 15, the model is shown draped in textiles, themselves recalling the oil painting from the same period, Odalisque au fauteuil noir (sold at Christie's, London, 22 June 2004, lot 26)-- indeed, the dressing on her head appears to be precisely the same. There is a lush and exotic splendour to these materials, to the wealth of detail that they introduce to the drawing, and also to the sense of movement. For with the hatching and other details, there is a clear sense of the artist's own passionate and enthusiastic activity in rendering the scene. At the same time, he has taken advantage of the charcoal medium by deliberately smudging the black area of her hair, creating a further textural contrast that itself heightens the air of sensuality with which Thème L Variation 15 is permeated.
During 1941 and 1942, while he was convalescing in bed in the Hôtel Régina, Matisse executed a series of works entitled the Thèmes et variations. He would begin with a charcoal drawing his Thème and then explore Variations upon that theme. In the figure drawings in this series such as Thème L Variation 15, executed in 1942, he would work in front of the original model even in the later works, but would do so in a manner that felt more casual and spontaneous than in many of his earlier works. The Thèmes et variations were in many ways the culmination of a lifetime of artistic exploration, hence Matisse's own comments to his son: 'For a year now I've been making an enormous effort in drawing. I say effort but that's a mistake, because what has occurred is a 'floraison' after fifty years of effort' (Matisse, quoted in J. Golding, 'Introduction,' pp. 10-18, J. Elderfield, The Drawings of Henri Matisse, exh.cat., London & New York, 1985, p. 16). These works, which were published in a book with a long introduction by the poet Louis Aragon, had an overarching musical character, as is hinted at by the Variations of the title, and this musicality is also reflected in the elegant and atmospheric content of the drawings, as is clear in Thème L Variation 15.
This drawing appears to show one of Matisse's favourite models of the time, Nézy-Hamidé Chawkat, a great-granddaughter of the sultan Abdul Hamid I who found herself living in exile on the Côte d'Azur. Matisse had met her while walking in Nice, and had immediately asked her to pose for him, finding that she perfectly encapsulated the lure of the oriental, of the Ottoman, that he had so often explored in his celebrated Odalisques. In Thème L Variation 15, the model is shown draped in textiles, themselves recalling the oil painting from the same period, Odalisque au fauteuil noir (sold at Christie's, London, 22 June 2004, lot 26)-- indeed, the dressing on her head appears to be precisely the same. There is a lush and exotic splendour to these materials, to the wealth of detail that they introduce to the drawing, and also to the sense of movement. For with the hatching and other details, there is a clear sense of the artist's own passionate and enthusiastic activity in rendering the scene. At the same time, he has taken advantage of the charcoal medium by deliberately smudging the black area of her hair, creating a further textural contrast that itself heightens the air of sensuality with which Thème L Variation 15 is permeated.