Seville Still Life

Painted in 1910 and held in the Hermitage, 'Seville Still Life' is a companion work to the 'Spanish Still Life,' both produced during Matisse's winter in Seville (1910–11) following the completion of Dance and Music. The Spanish visit brought him into contact with a different quality of southern light and with the decorative traditions of Andalusia — tiles, fans, embroidered textiles, ceramics. The still life in Seville became a field for investigating how Spanish decorative objects could be treated with the same chromatic radicalism he had been applying to North African and French subjects. The Hermitage holds both Spanish still lifes, giving them their proper context as a pair and as part of the broader Shchukin acquisition that documented Matisse's most experimental years. The Hermitage's possession of both Spanish still lifes allows them to be read as a pair and as part of the broader Shchukin acquisition that documented Matisse's most experimental phase.

Matisse arranges the still-life objects within a setting of patterned Spanish textiles, creating pattern-on-pattern effects he was developing across his 1910-11 work. The palette draws on warm Andalusian tones; near and far objects compete on the same flat surface.