Henri Matisse
The Serf
1899-1912
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Henri Matisse
The Serf
1899-1912
Physical Qualities
Bronze, 36 1/8 x 11 1/4 x 13 1/16 in. (91.8 x 28.6 x 33.2 cm.)
Credit Line
The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland
Object Number
1950.422
The Serf marks the beginning of the artist’s fascination with the human form in sculpture. Matisse spent three years and more than one hundred sessions with his model to master the figure in all its aspects. His relentless effort produced this powerful bronze of a man whose wide stance and dynamic, muscular body root him to the earth. The model for this work, Bevilacqua, was famous as a favorite of Auguste Rodin, the most important French sculptor of the late nineteenth century. Rodin hired him over twenty five years earlier to pose for his sculpture Walking Man and it is evident that Matisse was looking to Rodin’s example when he created this bronze. Rather than featuring an idealized, heroic image of a man in motion as Rodin had done, Matisse concentrated on his own personal reactions to the powerful physique of the model before him.
Matisse's unabashed debt to Rodin is apparent in the fragmented form of the robust Serf and in the energetic manipulation of its surface. The quality of that surface, however, is new. While the pitted, broken surfaces of Rodin's figures evoke once-perfect anatomies that have suffered the ravages of accident and time, Matisse's Serf is modeled with a lumpy agitation. Discrete light-reflecting masses constitute the figure without representing actual anatomical structures. It seems that working on The Serf has liberated Matisse from the requirement to convey the illusion of muscle, bone, and flesh.
Photo caption: Auguste Rodin, Walking Man, 1887 or 1888. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest, 1949; Claribel Cone and Etta Cone, Baltimore, by purchase between June 29, 1925 and March 21, 1928; Leo Stein, by purchase from the artist, September 30, 1908.
"A Century of Baltimore Collecting 1840 - 1940," The Baltimore Museum of Art, June 6 - September 1, 1941, p. 88.
"Henri Matisse Retrospective Exhibition," Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1948, no. 95.
"The Heritage of Rodin," Buchholz Gallery, New York, Decembert 5, 1950 - January 6, 1951.
"The Cone Collection," M. Knoedler & Co., New York, January 24 - February 19, 1955.
"The Partial Figure in Modern Sculpture, from Rodin to 1969," BMA, December 2, 1969 - Febrary 1, 1970, no. 47.
"Four Americans in Paris: The Collection of Gertrude Stein and her Family," MOMA, December 18, 1970 - March 1, 1971; BMA, April 4 - June 13, 1971.
Wildenstein & Company, New York, "Cone Collection from The Baltimore Museum of Art," March 29 - May 11, 1974, no.57
Brenda Richardson, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, "Matisse in The Collection of The Baltimore Museum of Art," August 24 - October 14, 1979.
"Matisse, Picasso, and Impressionist Masters from the Cone Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, October 21, 1991 - January 19, 1992.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, "Van Gogh to Matisse: Impressionist and Modern Masters from the Cone Collection, The Baltimore Museum of Art," November 21, 1993 - January 30, 1994.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Denver Art Museum, "Matisse from The Baltimore Museum of Art," March 11, 2000 - June 25, 2000; circulated to the Birmingham Museum of Art, July 23, 2000 - September 17, 2000; The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, October 10, 2000 - January 28, 2001.
Dorothy Kosinski, Jay McKean Fisher, Steven Nash; The Baltimore Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Nasher Sculpture Center, "Matisse: Painter as Sculptor," Dallas, January 21 - April 29, 2007; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, June 9 - September 16, 2007; The Baltimore Museum of Art, October 28, 2007- February 3, 2008, shown BMA only, no. 4.
National Gallery, London, "After Impressionsim (working title)". National Gallery, London, London, England, 25 March 2023- 13 August 2023.
"Henri Matisse Retrospective Exhibition," Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1948, no. 95.
"The Heritage of Rodin," Buchholz Gallery, New York, Decembert 5, 1950 - January 6, 1951.
"The Cone Collection," M. Knoedler & Co., New York, January 24 - February 19, 1955.
"The Partial Figure in Modern Sculpture, from Rodin to 1969," BMA, December 2, 1969 - Febrary 1, 1970, no. 47.
"Four Americans in Paris: The Collection of Gertrude Stein and her Family," MOMA, December 18, 1970 - March 1, 1971; BMA, April 4 - June 13, 1971.
Wildenstein & Company, New York, "Cone Collection from The Baltimore Museum of Art," March 29 - May 11, 1974, no.57
Brenda Richardson, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, "Matisse in The Collection of The Baltimore Museum of Art," August 24 - October 14, 1979.
"Matisse, Picasso, and Impressionist Masters from the Cone Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, October 21, 1991 - January 19, 1992.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, "Van Gogh to Matisse: Impressionist and Modern Masters from the Cone Collection, The Baltimore Museum of Art," November 21, 1993 - January 30, 1994.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Denver Art Museum, "Matisse from The Baltimore Museum of Art," March 11, 2000 - June 25, 2000; circulated to the Birmingham Museum of Art, July 23, 2000 - September 17, 2000; The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, October 10, 2000 - January 28, 2001.
Dorothy Kosinski, Jay McKean Fisher, Steven Nash; The Baltimore Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Nasher Sculpture Center, "Matisse: Painter as Sculptor," Dallas, January 21 - April 29, 2007; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, June 9 - September 16, 2007; The Baltimore Museum of Art, October 28, 2007- February 3, 2008, shown BMA only, no. 4.
National Gallery, London, "After Impressionsim (working title)". National Gallery, London, London, England, 25 March 2023- 13 August 2023.
Carl Einstein, "Die Kunst des 20 Jahrhunderts," (Berlin: 1926) 197.
Christian Zervos, "Sculpture des Peintre d'Aujourd'hui," Cahiers d'Art, Paris 1928, 7:278, ill.
G. Poulain, 'Sculptures de Henri Matisse,' "Formes," 1930, 9:10, ill.
Etta Cone, "The Cone Collection of Baltimore, Maryland" (Baltimore: 1934) plate. # 118.
Aragon, Louis, Henry Clifford, and Henri Matisse. Henri Matisse: Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture. Philadelphia: The Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1948, no. 94, ill. (Published as "The Slave")
Alexander Romm, trans. Chen I-Wan, "Henri Matisse," (Leningrad: Ogiz-Izogig, 1937).
Charles Seymore Jr., "Tradition and Experiment in Modern Sculpture," (Washington, D.C.: American University Press, 1949) 47.
"Baltimore Museum of Art News," Oct. 1949, no. 109.
Alfred H. Barr, Jr. "Matisse: His Art and His Public," (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1951) 52, 305, 557.
'A Tribute to Adelyn D. Breeskin,' "Baltimore Museum of Art News Quarterly," 25:4, (1962) 8.
Frederick Brill, "Matisse," (London: Paul Hamlyn, 1967) 13.
Herbert Read, "Art and Alienation: The role of the Artist in Society," (London: Thames & Hudson, 1967) 114-15, 171, pl. 28.
"Handbook of the Cone Collection," (Baltimore: BMA, 1955) 45, no. 142.
"Handbook of the Cone Collection," revised edition (Baltimore: BMA, 1967) 48, no. 131.
Elsen, Albert Edward. The Partial Figure in Modern Sculpture: From Rodin to 1969. [Baltimore, MD], [1969], cat. no. 47, page 34.
"Four Americans in Paris: The Collection of Gertrude Stein and Her Family" (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1970) 159.
Albert Elsen, "The Sculpture of Matisse," (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1972) 25-38.
Alicia Legg, "The Sculpture of Matisse," (New York: MOMA, 1972) 10.
Gowing, Lawrence. Matisse. Revised ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, page 42, fig. 28 (published as “La serf (The Slave)”)
Mannering, Douglas. The Art of Matisse. London: Optimum Books, 1982, page 20 (published as “The Slave”).
Jacobus, John M. Henri Matisse. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1983, page 13.
Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, "The Sculpture of Henri Matisse," (London: The Arts Council of Great Britain, 1984) cat. # 7.
Jack Flam, "Matisse The Man and His Art 1869-1918," (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1986) 85-88.
Jack Flam, "Matisse in The Cone Collection The Poetics of Vision,"(Baltimore: The Baltimore Museum of Art, 2001), pl. 7, p. 32, ill.
Ernst-Gerhard Güse, "Henri Matisse: Drawings and Sculpture" (Munich: Prestel, 1991) cat. # 99.
Hilary Spurling, "The Unknown Matisse," (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998) 213-16.
Dorothy Kosinski, Jay McKean Fisher, Steven Nash, "Matisse: Painter as Sculptor," (Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 2007) cat. no. 4, p. 266, ill. p. 266.
Cozzi, Leslie and Katherine Rothkopf (eds). "A Modern Influence: Henri Matisse, Etta Cone, and Baltimore." Baltimore: The Baltimore Museum of Art, 2021. ill.
Stevens, Maryanne. "After Impressionism: Inventing Modernism." London: National Gallery, 2023. p. 216, ill. plate 82.
de Margerie, Laure and Antoinette Le Normand-Romain. French Sculpture: An American Passion. Paris: Institut national d'histoire de l'art, 2023. ill., p. 322-323.
Inscribed: "Le Serf" on the front of the base. "Henri Matisse 2/10" on top of the base behind the figure's proper left foot.
Markings: "Bingen-Costenoble Fondeur Paris" on back of base behind the figure's proper left foot.
