Palm Leaf, Tangier
1912
Artist, French, 1869 - 1954
East Building Upper Level, Gallery 415-A
Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 117.5 x 81.9 cm (46 1/4 x 32 1/4 in.)
framed: 142.2 x 106.7 cm (56 x 42 in.) -
Accession
1978.73.1
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Sold by the artist 27 or 30 April 1912 to (Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris); sold 15 June 1912 to Curt Glaser [1879-1943], Berlin.[1] by sale or exchange to Oskar [1875-1947] and Greta Moll, Berlin, by 1913/1914.[2] (Galerie Thannhauser, Berlin), by 1932.[3] (Valentine Gallery, New York).[4] (Erhard Weyhe Gallery, New York), by the early 1940s;[5] sold after 1945 to Mr. and Mrs. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., New York;[6] on consignment with (Eugene Victor Thaw and Co., New York) and (Xavier Fourcade, Inc., New York); sold 1978 to NGA.
[1] The April 27 date, from the Archives Henri Matisse in Paris, is given in Matisse in Morocco: The Paintings and Drawings, 1912-1913, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (plus three subsequent venues), 1990: 72 note 1. The April 30 date, from the Bernheim-Jeune records (where the painting is their number 19329 and titled Matin de mars près de Tanger), is given in Guy-Patrice and Michel Dauberville, Henri Matisse chez Bernheim-Jeune, 2 vols., Paris, 1995: 1: 508-509, no. 122.
[2] The Matisse in Morocco catalogue (see note 1) cites a letter of 20 April 1951 from Greta Moll to Alfred Barr (in the Alfred H. Barr, Jr. Papers, Archives, The Museum of Modern Art, New York) that says in part: "... Besides we owned for a long time...the Palm Leaf... The Palm Leaf we probably had from 1913 to 1930." By 1914 Oskar Moll, who with his wife was an original class member of the school Matisse set up in Paris in 1908, had the most important collection of the artist's work in Germany. The Molls were in Berlin when they acquired the NGA painting; they went to Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) in 1919, to Düsseldorf in 1930, and returned to Berlin in the mid-1930s. See also Siegfried and Dorothea Salzmann, Oskar Moll Leben und Werk, Munich, 1975: 62, and letter of 17 July 1997 from Peter Kropmanns, in NGA curatorial files.
[3] The painting is visible in a photograph of Thannhauser's apartment, taken c. 1932/1933 and sent to the Barrs by Thannhauser. A photocopy of the photograph is in NGA curatorial files, along with the Barr's collection record for the painting.
[4] Valentine Gallery is included in the provenance given in Henri Matisse 1904-1917, exh. cat., Centre Georges Pomidou, Paris, 1993: no. 98, but no supporting documentation is given. The Archives of American Art holds some Valentine Gallery records, but they do not include any information about this painting. See note 6.
[5] Erhard Weyhe (1882-1972) came to the United States from Germany in 1914, having apprenticed as a book dealer in his native country, Italy, and Belgium. In his New York gallery, managed for many years after World War I by Carl Zigrosser, Weyhe specialized in art books and prints, and he made annual buying trips to Europe. (See Reba White Williams, "The Weyhe Gallery Between the Wars, 1919-1940," Ph.D. diss., The City University of New York, 1996.) The extant Weyhe Gallery records at the Archives of American Art deal almost exclusively with prints, and no mention of the Matisse painting was found.
[6] Mrs. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., in a letter of 27 June 1981 (in NGA curatorial files), relates that when Justin Thannhauser left Germany for Paris prior to World War II, he did not take the painting. Mrs. Barr suggests that it may have been entrusted to the Molls, or was re-bought by them, as her husband's impression was that "Weyhe had come upon it or heard about it in Dresden and that it belonged to Greta Moll by that time impoverished;" she also writes that her husband must have bought the painting "after 1945."
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1913
Possibly Exposition Henri-Matisse tableaux du Maroc et sculpture, Bernheim-Jeune & Cie., Paris, 1913, not in cat.
Kollektionen: Henri Matisse, Franz Heckendorf, E.L. Kirchner, Georg Leschnitzer, Kunst-Salon Fritz Gurlitt, Berlin, 1913, no. 60, as Die Palme.
1952
Six Centuries of Landscape, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; National Gallerie, Berlin, 1952, no. 64, repro.
1956
Rétrospective Henri Matisse, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, 1956, no. 32, repro.
1959
The Dial and the Dial Collection, Worcester Art Museum, 1959, no. 60
1970
Henri Matisse, Exposition du Centenaire, Grand Palais, Paris, 1970, no. 114, repro.
1982
Henri Matisse, Kunsthaus Zurich; Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 1982-1983, no. 35.
1984
Henri Matisse, Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark, 1984-1985, no. 20, repro.
The Orientalists: Delacroix to Matisse, The Allure of North Africa and the Near East, Royal Academy of Arts, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1984, no. 99c (London catalogue), no. 77c (Washington catalogue), repro.
1990
Matisse in Morocco: The Paintings and Drawings, 1912-1913, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Modern Art, New York; State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, 1990-1991, no. 7, repro.
1993
Henri Matisse 1904-1917, Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1993, no. 98, repro., as La palme.
1996
Matisse-Bonnard, une amitié, Musée Matisse, Nice, 1996, no catalogue.
1997
Henri Matisse: 'La révélation m'est venue de l'Orient', Musei Capitolini, Rome, 1997-1998, no. 28, repro.
1999
Le Maroc de Matisse, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, 1999-2000, no. 6, repro., as La Palme (Matin de mars près de Tamger).
2012
Matisse: In Search of True Painting, Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2012-2013, no. 21, repro.
2014
Morrice and Lyman in the Company of Matisse, Museé des beaux-arts du Québec; McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, 2014-2015, no. 20, repro. (shown only in Quebec).
2015
Matisse. Arabesque, Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, 2015, no. 6, repro.
Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse, Cleveland Museum of Art; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2015-2016, no. 109, repro.
Bibliography
1925
The Dial 78, no. 2 (Februay 1925): 90, color repro. as Still Life.
1951
Barr, Alfred H., Jr. Matisse: His Art and His Public. New York:145, 156, 157, 381 repro.
1954
Diehl, Gaston and Agnes Humbert. Henri Matisse. Paris, 1954: 69, as La palme.
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 594, no. 923, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 265, repro.
1989
Strick, Jeremy. Twentieth Century Painting and Sculpture: Selections for the Tenth Anniversary of the East Building. Washington, D.C., 1989: 26, repro. 27.
1995
Dauberville, Guy-Patrice and Michel. Henri Matisse Chez Bernheim-Jeune. 2 vols. Paris, 1995: I:no. 122.
1997
Matisse: La révélation m'est venue de l'Orient, Exh. cat., Musei capitolini, Rome, 1997: 142, no. 28, repro.
2004
Henri Matisse: Processus/Variation. Exh. cat. National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, 2004: 47, fig. 22.
2009
Cooper, Harry. The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection: Selected Works. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2009: 6-7, repro.
Inscriptions
lower right: Henri-Matisse
Wikidata ID
Q20191674