Henri Matisse, Bathers by a River (1909-10, 1913, 1916-17) © 2010 Succession Matisse/ ARS, New York.

In January 1913, Henri Matisse turned forty-three. His work was still considered controversial, if not downright dangerous, but he had nonetheless acquired a small circle of collector-admirers who included Gertrude and Leo Stein and the Russian patrons Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morosov. He even had achieved a measure of financial security, a contract with the respected gallery Bernheim-Jeune, thanks to the gallery’s manager, the critic Félix Fénéon, charged with recruiting younger artists. Matisse celebrated his birthday in Morocco, where he had been painting since October of the previous year, on the second of two extended sojourns in pursuit of North Africa’s brilliant light, color, and exotic flavor. He returned to France in mid-February to work in the studio attached to his home in Issy-les-Moulineaux, and later in a rented studio on the quai Saint-Michel, in Paris, during the difficulties of World War I. Towards the end of the war, in the fall of 1917, Matisse left Paris for the South of France, the first of many trips to the Mediterranean coast, which culminated in his full-time residence in Nice.

During the four years between Morocco and Nice—between the spring of 1913 to the fall of 1917—Matisse made some of his most inventive and remarkable works, even in comparison to the inventive, remarkable works that preceded them. It