Henri Matisse: La Gerbe, 1953 – Porcelain Art Mug

La Gerbe (The Sheaf) was completed by Henri Matisse in 1953, the year before his death, when he was eighty-three years old and had been working almost exclusively in cut-outs for a decade. Unable to stand at an easel, Matisse directed his assistants from a wheelchair or his bed, working at a scale and with a freedom that belied his physical circumstances. The cut-out method — scissors moving through sheets of paper painted in pure gouache — had become, in his own words, "cutting directly into colour," an act closer to sculpting than to painting.

La Gerbe is among the largest and most exuberant of the late cut-outs: leaf and frond forms in vivid greens, blacks, and whites fan outward like a burst of botanical energy. It was first published in the final issue of the journal Verve dedicated to Matisse's last works (1950–54) and subsequently reproduced as a lithograph. The composition distils Matisse's lifelong preoccupation with the decorative — not as ornament but as a primary expressive mode, as serious and as demanding as any other.

Fine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.

From the same series: Icarus, 1947 · Self-Portrait, 1930 · The Snail, 1953 · Blue Nude II, 1952 · Nuit de Noël, 1952 · Les Velours, 1947 · La Danse, 1909 · La Danse (Barnes Mural), 1933

Henri Matisse, La Gerbe (The Sheaf), 1953, published in Verve: Last Works of Matisse 1950–1954. Public domain in Switzerland, the EU and the United Kingdom; Matisse died in 1954. This mug is not sold into the United States.

Selected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.