A painting of a plate with two apples and a glass half-filled with liquid.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

The painting shows a plate with two golden apples arranged on a plate. A glass half-filled with liquid is behind the plate. The plate and glass sit on a table with a blue top. The table is against a gray wall and takes up three-quarters of the of the picture with a span of blank wall to the left of the table.

Gallery Text

This still life attests to Matisse’s admiration of Cézanne, and particularly of his manipulation of spatial relationships. It contains many of the objects typically found in Cézanne’s still lifes, and replicates his signature rupture of planar space and presentation of objects that seem unmoored and inconsistently dimensional. Recent technical examination reveals that Matisse adjusted and changed the main color oppositions of background and tabletop, eventually choosing gray and blue, as he did frequently during this period of his career. Evidence of his previous experimentations with color, especially a reddish-brown hue, is visible in the valleys of the large drying cracks that can be seen throughout. Many of Matisse’s paintings from this era contain these cracks, which occurred when he did not wait for a layer of paint to dry completely before painting over it.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1951.51
People
Henri Matisse, French (Cateau-Cambresis, France 1869 - 1954 Nice, France)
Title
Still Life with Apples
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1916
Culture
French
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/229044

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1220, European Art, 19th–20th century, Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on panel
Dimensions
32.8 x 41.1 cm (12 15/16 x 16 3/16 in.)
framed: 52 x 60 x 8.9 cm (20 1/2 x 23 5/8 x 3 1/2 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.r.: Henri Matisse
  • inscription: verso, blue chalk, crayon or colored pencil: Ph
  • inscription: verso, red chalk, crayon or colored pencil: 114
  • inscription: verso, blue chalk: 42 [encircled]
  • inscription: verso, black ink: 834

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Paul Guillaume, Paris, France, 1925, 1933. Maurice Wertheim, New York, NY (1937-1950); Bequest to Fogg Art Museum, 1951.


NOTE: Paul Guillaume certainly owned the work by 1930 as it is visible in a photograph of his dining room dated c. 1930, see Georgel 2006.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest from the Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906
Copyright
© Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Accession Year
1951
Object Number
1951.51
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

THIS WORK HAS SIGNIFICANT LOAN RESTRICTIONS BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

  • Collection Particulière Paul Guillaume, exh. cat., Bernheim-Jeune (Paris, France, 1929)
  • Waldemar George, La Grande Peinture Contemporaine a la Collection Paul Guillaume, exh. cat., Editions des Arts à Paris (Paris, France, 1929), p. 78, ill. p. 79
  • Henry McBride, "Matisse in America", Cahiers d'Art, C. Zervos (Paris, France, 1931), vol. VI, no. 5-6, repr. fig. 59
  • Henri Matisse: exposition organisee au profit de l'Orphelinat des arts, exh. cat., Galerie Georges Petit (Paris, France, 1931), no. 31
  • Giovanni Scheiwiller, Henri Matisse (Milan, Italy, 1933), repr. pl. 8
  • Hommage à Paul Guillaume, exh. cat., Petit Palais, Paris (Paris, France, 1935)
  • Raymond Escholier, Henri Matisse, Henri Floury (Paris, France, 1937), p. 60, repr.
  • Henri Matisse: Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, 1898-1939, exh. cat., Pierre Matisse Gallery (New York, NY, 1943), repr. no. 9
  • Alfred M. Frankfurter, "Today's Collectors: Modern Milestones", Art News (June 1946), vol. XLV, no. 4, p. 64; repr. in b/w p. 29
  • French Painting since 1870, lent by Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1946), repr. p. 56
  • La Peinture Française Depuis 1870: Collection Maurice Wertheim, exh. cat., Tom Taylor (Québec, Canada, 1949), p. 67, repr. p. 68
  • The Maurice Wertheim Catalogue: Modern French Art-- Monet to Picasso, exh. cat., North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, NC, 1960), repr. p. 23
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX, 1962), p. 26, pl. 8
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, exh. cat., Maine State Museum (Augusta, ME, 1972), no. 15, repr.
  • M. Carra, Tout L'Oeuvre Peint de Matisse, 1904-1928 (Paris, France, 1982), no. 214
  • Vivien Raynor, "Art: Impressionist Show at the I.B.M. Gallery" [review], The New York Times (New York, NY, April 26, 1985), p. C24
  • John O'Brian, Degas to Matisse: the Maurice Wertheim Collection, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and Fogg Art Museum (New York, NY and Cambridge, MA, 1988), no. 29, pp. 120-121, 158, repr. in color p. 121
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1990), repr. in color no. 39, p. 109
  • Pierre Georgel, La Collection Jean Walter et Paul Guillaume (2006), pp. , fig. 3
  • Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), p. 193, ill.
  • Gabriel Dunn, "Experimental and Innovative: Matisse Paintings from the Wertheim Collection" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 2012), Unpublished, pp. 1-50 passim
  • Elizabeth M. Rudy, "Researching the Wertheim Collection at the Harvard Art Museums", Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals (Summer 2014), Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 301-6

Exhibition History

  • Collection particulière Paul Guillaume au profit du Musèe du Luxembourg, Galerie Bernheim Jeune, Paris, 06/01/1929 - 06/30/1929
  • Henri Matisse, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 06/16/1931 - 06/25/1931
  • Hommage à Paul Guillaume, Petit Palais, Paris, Paris, 05/01/1935 - 05/31/1935
  • Henri Matisse: Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, 1898-1939, Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, 02/09/1943 - 02/27/1943
  • French Painting since 1870 lent by Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 06/01/1946 - 09/07/1946; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 07/01/1953 - 09/13/1953
  • La Peinture Française depuis 1870, Musée de la Province de Quebec, 07/12/1949 - 08/07/1949
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 07/01/1952 - 09/14/1952
  • French Paintings Since 1870 from the Maurice Wertheim Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 06/01/1953 - 09/30/1953
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 06/15/1957 - 09/15/1957
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 06/10/1958 - 08/31/1958
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Modern French Art--Monet to Picasso, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 06/17/1960 - 09/04/1960
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, 06/13/1962 - 09/02/1962
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, 06/20/1963 - 09/01/1963
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, 06/24/1965 - 09/07/1965
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, 09/03/1968 - 09/22/1968
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, 06/01/1971 - 09/30/1971
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Maine State Museum, Augusta, 06/01/1972 - 09/01/1972
  • Manet to Matisse: The Maurice Wertheim Collection, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York, 04/09/1985 - 05/25/1985
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, Isetan Department Store, Tokyo, 03/01/1990 - 04/10/1990; Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, 04/14/1990 - 05/13/1990
  • Re-View: S427 Impressionist & Postimpressionist Art, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/02/2008 - 06/18/2011
  • 32Q: 1220 Wertheim, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

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This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu