019 - Jeune Hindoue (Duthuit 508), 1929

"Jeune Hindoue" is a lithograph created by Henri Matisse in 1929. From the edition of 71, the artwork is signed signed 'Henri Matisse' and annotated lower right. The artwork is framed in a custom, closed corner, gold leaf frame and has a framed size of 24.75 x 29". The artwork ships framed and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

Henri Matisse is one of the true giants of modern art. As the leader of the Fauvist movement and one of the most inventive artists of the 20th century, Matisse revolutionized how color, line, and form are used to convey emotion and structure. Throughout his career, he sought to simplify form and intensify feeling, distilling his subjects into compositions of lyrical clarity and harmony.

While best known for his painting, Matisse was also a master printmaker—particularly in lithography, where he used black-and-white imagery to explore volume, sensuality, and gesture with extraordinary economy. His prints, especially figurative works from the 1920s and 1930s, are celebrated for their graphic elegance, psychological intimacy, and assured draftsmanship. His influence is enduring and global, and his works are found in every major museum, from the Louvre to MoMA to the Hermitage.

“Jeune Hindoue,” executed in 1929, is one of the finest examples of Matisse’s late 1920s lithographic portraiture. It presents a nude young woman adorned in Near Eastern-inspired jewelry and veil, reclining in a Moorish or Moroccan-style chair—a composition that reflects Matisse’s deep interest in non-Western cultures and the sensual beauty of the human figure. The woman’s elaborate adornments and languid pose underscore the exoticism and theatricality of the sitter but also signal Matisse’s artistic exploration of cultural hybridity and ornamental form. The contours are drawn with characteristic fluency: the chair curls into arabesques; the body is supple and confident; the balance of light and dark is choreographed with precision. This is not an impersonal study of the exotic—it is a tender, expressive portrait that channels Matisse’s love for the harmony between figure, pattern, and atmosphere.

The 1920s were a formative period for Matisse’s travel-inspired works, particularly following his extended trips to Morocco in 1912–13 and his exposure to Islamic art and architecture. “Jeune Hindoue” exemplifies this fascination: it captures not a specific culture, but an aesthetic dream of the East filtered through modernist sensibilities. The lounging nude recalls Matisse’s long tradition of odalisque imagery — yet here, in lithographic form, the result is intimate rather than decorative. The ornate chair and rhythmic lines elevate the subject into a space of serene sensuality and ornamental beauty. Importantly, this print is not a mere fantasy of ‘otherness,’ but part of a sustained and nuanced engagement with pattern, pose, and the inner life of the model.

“Jeune Hindoue” (D.508, 1929) is a sensuous and refined lithograph, drawn with the confidence of a modern master at the height of his expressive powers. At once intimate and decorative, Western and Eastern, it encapsulates the cross-cultural elegance and formal innovation that define Matisse’s legacy.