Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
Gallery Text

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
Object Number
1951.52
People
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
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
  • 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
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.
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Publication History

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

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