Lithograph on vélin supérieur paper. Unsigned and unnumbered. Paper Size: 9.625 x 8.25 inches. Excellent condition. Notes: From the volume, Pierre à feu, Les Miroirs profonds. Published by Maeght, éditeur, Paris; printed by Mourlot Frères, Paris, January 17, 1947. Excerpted from the volume (translated from French), Justification of the draw—This collection was completed to be printed in Paris on January XVII, MCMXLVII. The cover in five colors and the seventeen full-page illustrations, i.e. I frontispiece and one original non-text lithograph, I gouge engraved wood and fourteen unpublished rotogravures were composed and layouted by Henri Matisse. The printing of the illustrations and texts was made by Draeger Frères. It was printed CMXCIX examples, including XLIX signed by Henri Matisse numbered from I to XLIX and CML on Vélin supérieur numbered from I to CML. The lithographic stone drawn by Mourlot frères, the engraved wood and the rotogravure brass were scratched after printing. HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954) One of the undisputed masters of 20th century art, was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Although he was initially labeled a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art.