c. 1900

Still Life with a Chocolate Pot

French, 1869 - 1954

Henri Matisse lived with a collection of favorite objects that served as a constant source of inspiration to him. This silver and wood pot was a wedding gift to Matisse and Amélie Parayre in 1898, and Matisse would depict it dozens of times over four decades. This painting is one of two versions made in or around 1900 of a composition with an orange, a leather-bound book, and the pot. The pot’s bulging belly catches myriad reflections of light and color; orange-green highlights give form to our perception of the object’s sensory presence. Not long after he made this picture, Matisse was recorded as saying that qualities and interrelations of color are most important in the genre of still life.