The Serf

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1900–03, cast c. 1908

Henri Matisse
French, 1869–1954

Henri Matisse often turned to sculpture early in his career in an attempt “to put order into my feelings and find a style to suit me.” More than half of his total output of sculpture dates to between 1900 and 1909, and these works reveal a deep interest in the human figure, as well as ancient and early modern works of art. The Serf, one of Matisse’s earliest sculptures, consumed him: he was reported to have spent up to 500 sessions with his model, Bevilaqua, who also posed for Auguste Rodin. The Art Institute’s work is an early cast (1908) of a total edition of 10 and was once owned by Matisse’s most enthusiastic early supporters, Michael and Sarah Stein.

Status: On View, Gallery 391
Department: Modern Art

Artist: Henri Matisse
Title: The Serf
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1900–1904
Medium: Bronze
Inscriptions: Signed on base, l. rear: "Henri Matisse 1/10"
Dimensions: 91.5 × 30.5 × 34.3 cm (36 × 12 × 13 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Edward E. Ayer Endowment in memory of Charles L. Hutchinson
Reference Number: 1949.202
Copyright: © 2018 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Possibly Société du Salon d’Automne, Catalogue des ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, dessin, gravure, architecture et art décoratif, exh. cat. (Librairie Administrative Paul Dupont, 1908), p. 127, cat. 910, as Le serf (bronze).
Fiske Kimball, “Matisse: Recognition, Patronage, Collecting,” Philadelphia Museum Bulletin 43, no. 217 (Mar. 1948), p. 39, as The Slave.
Fiske Kimball, “Discovery from America,” Art News 47, no. 2 (Apr. 1948), p. 31, as The Slave.
Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Matisse: His Art and His Public (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1951), pp. 305, 557, as The Slave (Le serf), Paris (1900–03) and The Slave 1900–02.
Museum of Modern Art, Henri Matisse, exh. cat. introduction by Alfred H. Barr, Jr. (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1951), pp. 11, cat. 76; 14 (ill.), as The Slave, (1900–03).
Museum of Modern Art, Sculpture of the Twentieth Century, exh. cat., introduction by Andrew Carnduff Ritchie (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1952), p. 45, cat. 75, as The Slave, 1900–03.
Andrew Carnduff Ritchie, Sculpture of the Twentieth Century (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1952), p. 58 (ill.), as The Slave, 1900–03.
Andrew C. Ritchie, “Sculpture of the Twentieth Century,” Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 47, no. 1 (Feb. 1, 1953), pp. 8–9 (ill.), as The Slave, 1900–1903.
Art Institute of Chicago, “Matisse Retrospective Exhibition,” Calendar of the Art Institute of Chicago 60, no. 2 (Mar. 1966), n. pag. (ill.), as The Slave, 1900–1903.
A. James Speyer, “Twentieth-Century European Painting and Sculpture,” Apollo, n.s., 84, no. 55 (Sept. 1966), p. 223, fig. 1, as The Slave, 1900–3.
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Henri Matisse: Dessins et sculpture, exh. cat., introduction by Dominique Bozo (Centre Georges Pompidou, 1975), pp. 188–90, cat. 166 (ill.), as Le serf, 1900–1903.
Henri Matisse: Dessins et sculpture/Tekeningen en sculpturen, exh. cat., introduction by Dominique Bozo (Société des Expositions du Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, 1975), cat. 158 (ill.), as Le serf/De lijfeigene, Paris, 1900–03.
Claude Duthuit, Wanda de Guébriant, and Yve-Alain Bois, Henri Matisse: Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre sculpté, ed. Claude Duthuit, trans. Gregory Sims (C. Duthuit, 1997), p. 10, cat. 6, no. 1, as Le Serf—L’Esclave/The Serf—The Slave, Paris, 1900–1903 [cast c. 1908].
James N. Wood and Debra N. Mancoff, Treasures from the Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 2000), p. 228 (ill.), as The Serf, 1900–1908.
Oliver Shell, “Seeing Figures: Exhibition and Vision in Matisse’s Sculpture,” in Dorothy Kosinski, Jay McKean Fisher, and Steven Nash, Matisse: Painter as Sculptor, exh. cat. (Baltimore Museum of Art/Dallas Museum of Art/Nasher Sculpture Center/Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 57 (ill.), 58, as The Serf.
Jean-Louis Cohen and Tim Benton, Le Corbusier: Le Grand (Phaidon, 2008), p. 175 (ill.).
Hilary Spurling, Matisse: The Life (Penguin Books, 2009), pp. 156–57, as The Serf.
Stephanie D’Alessandro and John Elderfield, Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913–1917, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 2010), p. 321, as The Serf, 1900–04.
Janet Bishop, Cécile Debray, and Rebecca Rabinow, eds., “Leo Stein: Plates” and “The Stein Residences in Photographs,” in The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde, exh. cat. (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art/Yale University Press, 2011), pp. 384, no. 25; 385, pls. 370, 371; 386, no. 17; 387, pls. 373, 374, no. 17; 389, no. 3, pl. 377, as The Serf, 1900–1903.
Claudine Grammont, “Matisse as Religion: The ‘Mike Steins’ and Matisse, 1908–1918,” trans. Alison Anderson, in The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde, exh. cat., ed. Janet Bishop, Cécile Debray, and Rebecca Rabinow (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art/Yale University Press, 2011), p. 152, as The Serf, 1900–1903.
Robert McD. Parker, “Catalogue of the Stein Collections,” in The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde, exh. cat., ed. Janet Bishop, Cécile Debray, and Rebecca Rabinow (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art/Yale University Press, 2011), p. 424, as Serf, 1900–1903 (cast ca. 1908).
Carrie Pilto, “The Steins Build: Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein–de Monzie, Les Terrasses,” in The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde, exh. cat., ed. Janet Bishop, Cécile Debray, and Rebecca Rabinow (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art/Yale University Press, 2011), p. 173, as The Serf, 1900–1903.
Stephanie D’Alessandro, The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Masters from the Art Institute of Chicago, with contributions by Renée DeVoe Mertz, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Kimbell Art Museum, 2013), pp. 6 (ill.), 20 (ill.), as The Serf, 1900–04.
Stephanie D’Alessandro, The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, with contributions by Renée DeVoe Mertz, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2014), pp. 14 (ill.), 19 (ill.), as The Serf, 1900–04.
“The Serf,” in Matisse Paintings, Works on Paper, Sculpture, and Textiles at the Art Institute of Chicago, ed. Stephanie D’Alessandro (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2019), cat. 3, https://publications.artic.edu/matisse/reader/works/section/33/33_anchor.

Possibly Paris, Grand Palais, Salon d’Automne, Oct. 1–Nov. 8, 1908, cat. 910, as Le serf (bronze).
New York, Museum of Modern Art, Henri Matisse, Nov. 13, 1951–Jan. 13, 1952, cat. 76 (ill.), as The Slave, (1900–03); Cleveland Museum of Art, Feb. 5–Mar. 16, 1952; Art Institute of Chicago, Apr. 1–May 4, 1952; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, May 22–July 6, 1952 (New York, Cleveland, and Chicago only).
Philadelphia, Museum of Art, Sculpture of the Twentieth Century, Oct. 11–Dec. 7, 1952, cat. 75, as The Slave, 1900–03; Art Institute of Chicago, Jan. 22–Mar. 8, 1953; New York, Museum of Modern Art, Apr. 29–Sept. 7, 1953.
Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Henri Matisse: Dessins et sculpture, May 29–Sept. 7, 1975, cat. 166 (ill.), as Le serf, 1900–1903; Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Sept. 27–Oct. 26, 1975 (as Henri Matisse: Dessins et sculpture/tekeningen en sculpturen), cat. 158 (ill.), as Le serf/De lijfeigene, 1900–03.
Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Masters from the Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 6, 2013–Feb. 16, 2014, no cat. no. (ill.), as The Serf, 1900–04.

Michael Stein (Mar. 26, 1865–Sept. 9, 1938) and Sarah Stein (born Sarah Samuels, July 27, 1870–Sept. 15, 1953), Paris, Garches, France and Palo Alto, CA, c. 1908 [Kimball 1948; letter from Fiske Kimball to R. Sturgis Ingersoll, Feb. 25, 1947, Philadelphia Museum of Art Archives; copy in curatorial object file]. Earl Stendahl Gallery, Hollywood, CA, probably by Feb. 1, 1949 [letter from Samuel Marx to Earl Stendahl, Feb. 1, 1949, Archives of American Art, Earl Stendahl Gallery, roll 2720, frame 1105; copy in curatorial object file]; sold to Art Institute of Chicago, May 2, 1949.

Cat. 3 The Serf, 1900–03

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