- Gallery Text
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Potted red geraniums appear frequently in Matisse’s paintings from the first decade of the twentieth century. This scene plays with the concept of mimetic representation by juxtaposing real flowers with printed ones in the wallpaper behind, and painted ones in the plate under the pot. Matisse further complicates his proposition by including four dark-blue petals in the foreground, which appear to be from an entirely different plant. He also destabilizes the entire scene by rendering the sloping foreground as flatly as the wallpapered wall. Just as he had done in the other still life hanging nearby, Matisse changed the main colors of the background as he worked. Initially, the top half of the composition was predominantly pink and the bottom was green, but after exploring other combinations, Matisse, a master colorist, repainted them in blue and ochre.
- Identification and Creation
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- Object Number
- 1951.52
- People
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Henri Matisse, French (Cateau-Cambresis, France 1869 - 1954 Nice, France)
- Title
- Geraniums
- Classification
- Paintings
- Work Type
- painting
- Date
- 1910
- Culture
- French
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/229045
- Location
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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 canvas
- Dimensions
- 61.4 x 50.4 cm (24 3/16 x 19 13/16 in.)
framed: 79.4 x 68.4 x 7 cm (31 1/4 x 26 15/16 x 2 3/4 in.) - Inscriptions and Marks
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- Signed: l. r.: Henri Matisse
- stamp: verso, two identical, round export stamps in brown ink, one on the canvas and one on the stretcher: DOUANES / PARIS / EXPOSITION
- inscription: verso, stretcher, graphite: [illegible grouping of numbers]
- label: verso, stretcher, blue border label with handwriting in brown ink: 53
- label: verso, stretcher, label with decorative blue border, mostly torn-off : [illegible]
- inscription: verso, stretcher, graphite: pot de Geraniums / BJ
- inscription: verso, stretcher, blue chalk: B.J.
- inscription: verso, stretcher, graphite: 134
- inscription: verso, stretcher, white chalk: [illegible, inscription mostly gone]
- stamp: verso, center stretcher, black ink: VALENTINE GALLERY / 16 East 57th Street / New York
- inscription: verso, center stretcher, blue chalk, crayon or colored pencil: [illegible]
- inscription: verso, stretcher, blue chalk or crayon: [two words, illegible]
- Provenance
- Private Collector, Paris, Said to have been bought directly from artist, 1918.
Maurice Wertheim, Purchased from the Valentine Gallery, 1937, Bequest to Fogg Art Museum, 1951.
- Acquisition and Rights
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- 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
- 1951.52
- Division
- Modern and Contemporary Art
- Contact
- am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
- THIS WORK HAS SIGNIFICANT LOAN RESTRICTIONS BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.
- The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.
- Publication History
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Twenty Paintings by Henri Matisse, exh. cat., Valentine Gallery (New York, NY, 1936), no. 7
"Outstanding Modern Painters in Decoration", Arts & Decoration (January 1937), vol. XLV, pp. 16-17, repr., p. 17
Alfred M. Frankfurter, "Today's Collectors: Modern Milestones", Art News (June 1946), vol. XLV, no. 4, p. 64
French Painting since 1870, lent by Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1946), p. 54, repr. p. 55
La Peinture Française Depuis 1870: Collection Maurice Wertheim, exh. cat., Tom Taylor (Québec, Canada, 1949), p. 65; repr. p. 66
"Notes About Art", The New York Times, International edition (July 29, 1951), repr.
Howard Devree, "By French Masters: The Metropolitan Shows Wertheim Collection", The New York Times (New York, NY, July 6 1952), p. 6, p. 6, repr.
The Maurice Wertheim Catalogue: Modern French Art-- Monet to Picasso, exh. cat., North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, NC, 1960), p. 24, repr. p. 25
The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX, 1962), p. 28, pl. 9
The Maurice Wertheim Collection, exh. cat., Maine State Museum (Augusta, ME, 1972), no. 14, repr.
Vivien Raynor, "Art: Impressionist Show at the I.B.M. Gallery" [review], The New York Times (New York, NY, April 26, 1985), p. C24, repr.
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. 28, pp. 117-119, 158; repr. in color p. 118
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. 38, p. 107
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
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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