Henri matisse

In Baltimore, an unparalleled look at Matisse and his daughter

BALTIMORE – Unlike Michelangelo, Henri Matisse wasn’t known for painting miracles. But in 1945, he sketched the one he witnessed.

The French modernist had only one daughter, Marguerite, who acted as his model, muse and manager. She was imprisoned by the Gestapo in 1944, tortured and interrogated for aiding the French Resistance. Matisse, then in his 70s, assumed she would be killed. But Marguerite managed to escape during transport to a death camp and returned to the South of France in 1945, where her father lived and worked during the final years of his life.

When she arrived, Matisse, overcome with shock, turned to paper to express his joy: he sketched, then obsessed, and then sketched some more, producing the final two works of his daughter – one straightforward, the other abstract – that depict Marguerite upon her return from an earthly hell, an event that Matisse called “a miracle” in a letter to his son Pierre.

This miracle now hangs in Baltimore Museum of Art for “Matisse’s Marguerite: Model Daughter” on vie

Marguerite with Black Velvet Ribbon

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Title:Marguerite with Black Velvet Ribbon

Artist:Henri Matisse (French, Le Cateau-Cambrésis 1869–1954 Nice)

Date:1916

Medium:Oil on cradled panel

Dimensions:7 1/2 × 7 in. (19.1 × 17.8 cm)

Classification:Paintings

Credit Line:The Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Collection, 2002

Object Number:2002.456.14

Rights and Reproduction:© 2025 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Inscription: Signed (lower right): H. Matisse

the artist (1916–d. 1954; his estate, 1955; ca. 1955 to J. Matisse); his son, Jean Gérard Matisse, Paris (ca. 1955–d. 1976); his widow, Marie Matisse (1976–78; sold in 1978 to P. Matisse); Pierre Matisse, New York (1978–d. 1989); his widow, Maria-Gaetana Matisse, née von Spreti, New York (1989–d. 2001); Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Foundation (2002; gift to MMA)

Los Angeles. UCLA Art Galleries. "Henri Matisse: Retrospective 1966," January 5–February 27, 1966, no. 40.

Art Institute of Chicago

Marguerite (Matisse) Duthuit (1894 - bef. 1982)

MargueriteDuthuit formerly Matisse

Born [location unknown]

Ancestors

Daughter of Henri Émile Benoît Matisse and Caroline Joblau

Sister of Jean Gerard Matisse[half] and Pierre Louis Auguste Matisse[half]

[spouse(s) unknown]

[children unknown]

Died before before age 88in Paris, France

Profile last modified | Created 21 Nov 2017

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Biography

Marguerite was born in 1894. She is the daughter of Henri Matisse and Caroline Joblau. Marguerite was often a model for her father. She was the expert on her father’s art and died while finishing a catalogue of her father’s work.

During World War II, she was active in the resistance, but was arrested by the Gestapo and tortured. She was on her way to the concentration camp at Ravensbruch but managed to escape.

Sources





Acadian heritage connections: Marguerite is 27 degrees from Beyoncé Knowles, 25 degrees from Jean Béliveau, 26 degrees from Madonna Ciccone, 24 degrees from Rhéal Cormier, 27 degrees from Joseph Drouin, 27

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