.png)
Original prints are the accessible end of a giant's market. Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954) made lithographs, etchings and linocuts throughout his career, and while his paintings long ago passed beyond private reach, his signed prints remain within it. This guide explains what Matisse made, how to tell an original print from a reproduction, and what drives value at auction.
Matisse led the Fauves, the 'wild beasts' whose blazing colour scandalised Paris in 1905, and spent the next half century refining colour and line into an art of apparent effortlessness. Bedridden in his final decade, he reinvented himself once more with the cut-outs, scissored paper compositions whose shapes, translated into the Jazz portfolio and related prints, are now among the most recognisable images of the twentieth century.
Printmaking was central to Matisse's practice, not a sideline. His lithographs of the 1920s, the odalisques and female heads drawn with a crayon's softness, are the heart of the market. Around them sit spare, elegant etchings and drypoints, bold linocuts, aquatints, and the great illustrated books, the livres d'artistes, whose plates are collected individually. Most were published in defined, numbered editions, typically small, and that discipline underpins the market today.
The word 'signed' does a lot of work in this field, and buyers need to know the distinctions. A pencil signature in the margin, usually with an edition number such as 23/50, means Matisse approved and signed that impression himself, and these command the strongest prices. A plate signature, printed as part of the image, is not a hand signature and adds little. Posthumous impressions may carry an estate stamp rather than a signature. And a great many attractive framed 'Matisse' images are simply exhibition posters or book reproductions with no original print status at all. The catalogue raisonné of Matisse's prints settles what an image is, and a specialist will check it as a matter of course.
Four things, broadly. Subject and period first: the 1920s odalisques and the imagery of the cut-out years are the most sought after. Edition size second, the smaller the edition, the scarcer the impression. The signature third, as above. And condition last but far from least: works on paper punish neglect, and fading, foxing, mount-staining and trimmed margins all take a toll that restoration can only partly reverse. An untouched impression with full margins is always the one the room fights over.
Matisse prints trade constantly at auction across a very wide range, from hundreds of pounds for book plates and later editioned images to five and occasionally six figures for the finest hand-signed lithographs. That breadth is precisely the appeal: there is a genuine Matisse for almost every level of collecting, provided the buyer knows exactly what is being bought. For the mechanics of how prints are made and editioned, our guide to the art of printmaking is a useful companion.
Prints reward expertise more than almost any field we handle, and misdescribed examples circulate freely online. Our prints and multiples department catalogues every work with its edition, signature status and condition stated plainly. If a Matisse print hangs on your wall, signed, stamped or simply mysterious, our specialists offer a free valuation and will tell you honestly what it is and what it should make.
