Old age is nobody’s friend but even less so in the case of a visual artist. In 1941, Matisse endured abdominal surgery followed by life-threatening sepsis. His arthritis and eye problems had also gotten worse. These health problems meant that he was often bedridden and unable to sustain the rigor of standing for hours at an easel.

However, the last 15 years of his long career were an illustration of the old adage that if life gives you lemons, you learn to make lemonade. Matisse was less and less able to stand at an easel and to arrange fabrics and models for posing as he had done for his odalisque canvases. One painting from this period is Branch of Prune Tree, Green Background, which features a model at a large red table, dominated by a huge pink bloom that a fruit tree can sometimes produce with such abandon. The colors are vibrant, and the composition is quintessential mature Matisse; this is truly a perfect painting. Painted in the late 1940s, this was one of the last of his oil paintings; by then, Matisse was no longer wielding a brush but scissors.

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