Henri Matisse: Self-Portrait, 1930 – Porcelain Art Mug

By 1930, Henri Matisse had earned the right to look back at himself with something approaching equanimity. The decade that followed the First World War had seen him move from the sensuous chaos of his Nice interiors — sunlit rooms, reclining figures, pattern layered on pattern — toward a leaner, more architecturally considered approach to form. His 1930 self-portrait belongs to this moment of consolidation. Reduced to essentials, it shows a man who has put aside decorative abundance in favour of something more penetrating: the direct confrontation of the artist with his own face, rendered in a few confident lines.

The self-portrait with Matisse's signature carries the authority of an artist at the height of his international reputation — the same year he travelled to Tahiti and began the commission that would lead to his murals for the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania. The minimalism is not simplicity but compression: everything that could be said with more has been said with less, which was the achievement of a lifetime.

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: La Gerbe, 1953 · Icarus, 1947 · The Snail, 1953 · Blue Nude II, 1952 · Nuit de Noël, 1952 · Les Velours, 1947 · La Danse, 1909 · La Danse (Barnes Mural), 1933

Henri Matisse, self-portrait with signature, 1930. 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.