配色-莉迪亚·德莱克托斯卡娅肖像Portrait of Lydia Delectorskaya

作者：Henry Matisse Henri Matisse

作品名称：Portrait of Lydia Delectorskaya

中文名称：莉迪亚·德莱克托斯卡娅肖像

创作时间：1947 年

画作尺寸：64.5 x 49.5 cm

绘画类型：布面油画

流派：表现主义

题材：肖像画

收藏于：圣彼得堡艾米塔吉博物馆

Lydia Delectorskaya was born in 1910, the only child of a doctor. Orphaned in the upheaval of the 1917 revolution, Lydia was forced to flee Russia and eventually went into exile in Nice, penniless. In 1932, she found temporary work, first as a studio assistant to Matisse and his wife, then as a domestic servant, and her life was very difficult. It was another three years before Matisse asked her to model. Lydia was 25, and Matisse was 65. She considered Matisse a kind and polite old gentleman because (unlike previous artists, who hated being a model) Matisse never grabbed her or tried to take off her clothes. " Gradually, I began to adjust and feel less'tied down, '"she wrote."... Eventually, I even became interested in his work. "

That fall, Lydia posed for a portrait of a fairy courted by the forest god, a subject that Matisse first painted 30 years ago. When she was a lead model and a studio manager at the same time, painting became the center of her life, just like Matisse.

Finally, Matisse's marriage was in crisis. Faced with his wife's ultimatum ("it's me or her"), Matisse chose his wife and fired Lydia, but it was too late. Matisse's wife, still angry at her husband's betrayal, left her husband in early 1939. Lydia briefly returned to her studio in Paris to help, finding herself and Matisse trapped among the crowds fleeing the invasion after declaring war with Germany. "A decision had to be made there," she said, "to decide whether he would take me with him." Matisse painted Lydia in a travel hat at the beginning of their soon-to-be-long journey through war-torn France together. She stayed by his side for the rest of his life.

The day before Mr. Matisse died on Nov. 3, 1954, at age 84, Lydia walked to his bed with a turban wrapped around a towel, her freshly washed hair accentuating the classical seriousness and purity of the profile that Mr. Matisse often depicted. He picked up a ballpoint pen and sketched, drawing a little closer to her, assessing the quality, and then said solemnly: "That's it."

Lydia accompanied and guarded Matisse until the end of his life, without a marriage contract, and was always called "Lady Lydia". 

During the more than 20 years of his acquaintance with Matisse, he created more than 100 sketches and ninety oil paintings based on her. In his later years, Matisse gave Lydia many paintings and drawings for her future livelihood.

In Lydia's later years, she donated these works to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, along with the works she usually bought with her own pay. 

Lydia Delectorskaya completed her 88-year life in Paris on March 16, 1998, and was buried in Pavlovsk Cemetery in St. Petersburg.