Erika Holmquist-Wall

The music lesson is, I think, a really terrific picture that showcases, not only one of Matisse’s favorite model of the day, Harriet who we see on the left. But he also includes his daughter, Marguerite that we see on the right. Harriet has a violin under her arm and a bow and Marguerite is looking at the music and they look so serious in studying the music in front of them. Now we know that Matisse was a very enthusiastic violinist, he practiced every day. Now Marguerite was someone who was of great importance to her father. And she was sort of the lynchpin of the family who spent so much time with her father, helping him in the studio, helping an adult helping him run the business, you know doing the correspondence for purchases and shipments and organizing the financial side of the business. But she also was someone that he loved to paint. Today we have got this great record of this really strong and important force in his life in this lovely [Indiscernible][0:01:15] it sure is like the music lesson. It seems that Harriet and Marguerite got along very well and so through the sort of early 20s are quite a few pictures of them together and this is one of my favorites.