Lemons on a Pewter Plate

<p>Beginning in 1917, Henri Matisse spent most winters in the southern French city of Nice. The warm light there transformed the artist’s work profoundly, leading him to comment: &quot;If I had painted in the north . . . my painting would have been different. There would have been browns, grays, shadings of color through perspective.&quot; Painted during one of his sojourns to Nice, this picture’s challenging spatial construction, palpable paint texture, and patterned background recall the still lifes of <a href="https://www.artic.edu/artists/40482">Paul Cezanne</a>. The artist was especially on Matisse’s mind when he began this composition in 1926: the same year, Matisse’s dealer staged a posthumous retrospective of over 50 of Cézanne’s major works.</p>