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A picture of jealous rivalry: Madame Matisse, by Sophie Haydock, reviewed

Henri Matisse’s wife and longstanding model was understandably enraged when the artist, in later life, preferred his much younger Russian mistress as a sitter

22 March 2025

9:00 AM

22 March 2025

9:00 AM

Madame Matisse Sophie Haydock

Doubleday, pp.352, 18.99

‘Your muse or your wife’ is quite the ultimatum to throw at an artist. But that was the choice Henri Matisse faced in 1939 when his wife of 30 years (you might know her as ‘Woman with a Hat’, 1905) had had enough of Lydia Delectorskaya (‘The Pink Nude’, 1935).

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