Seated Woman

Painted in 1908 and held in the Hermitage as part of the Shchukin collection, 'Seated Woman' reflects Matisse's intensive work with the posed female figure during the years immediately following Fauvism. Having established his reputation as the leader of the 'wild beasts' through shocking colour at the 1905 Salon d'Automne, Matisse spent the following years consolidating and deepening his pictorial language rather than simply repeating the Fauvist formula. Seated figures allowed him to explore the relationship between the human form, the chair or furniture that supports it, and the surrounding space — a set of relationships that would preoccupy him throughout his career. By 1908 he had absorbed lessons from Cézanne, African sculpture, and Islamic decorative art, all of which left traces in how he simplified and organised the body on the picture surface.

The figure is rendered with assured contour lines over a broadly painted background, the body's volume suggested through selective tonal variation rather than systematic modelling. Matisse balances warm and cool colour across the composition with characteristic economy.