ALS in French, signed “H. Matisse,” one page, 5.25 x 7.25, November 2, 1949. Handwritten letter to a friend, declining to pose for a portrait. In full (translated): "I am quite upset about having to write to you that I am too nervous to be able to pose. It is something that has always been painful for me. I have never been able to pose even for Marquet 50 years ago. Please believe, dear friend, in my regrets and in my best wishes." In fine condition.
At this time in his life Matisse said that all he could do was work, dreading the daily confrontation with form and color on the canvas and could not face it without the consoling human presence of the pretty young girls he paid to pose for him: 'That's what keeps me there, surrounded by my fruit and flowers which I get to grips with little by little, almost without noticing and then I wait for the thunderbolt that is bound to follow.' The young women who posed for him all learned to live and work in the atmosphere of almost unbearable tension generated by Matisse's effort to express his emotions on canvas—an effort that drained all his strength. As evidenced here, he felt the same tension as when asked to pose himself.
Henri Matisse and Albert Marquet were close friends and fellow artists who studied together at the École des Beaux-Arts under Gustave Moreau. They both became key figures in the Fauvist movement, often painting side by side and sharing a mutual respect for each other's work. In 1899, Marquet did paint a portrait of Matisse, now held in the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux.
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