The Three Sisters

Painted in 1917 and held in the Jean Walter-Paul Guillaume Collection (Musée de l'Orangerie), 'The Three Sisters' is a multi-figure composition that Matisse worked through in several related versions, exploring how to balance three distinct female presences within a single decorative field. The year 1917 was late in his austere 'dark period' before the full flowering of his Nice style; the palette and handling here retain some of the structural severity of his mid-1910s work while anticipating the greater sensuous warmth of what followed. Multiple versions of related compositions allow scholars to track his compositional decisions; here the three figures are arranged across the canvas in a configuration that prioritises surface rhythm over spatial depth. Paul Guillaume acquired this work and it passed to the Orangerie through the Walter-Guillaume bequest.

The three figures are distributed across the canvas in a near-symmetrical arrangement that creates a frieze-like quality. Matisse uses flat colour areas and strong outlines to define the figures without conventional modelling.