Painted by Henri Matisse in 1909–1910 for the staircase of the Moscow mansion of the Russian collector Sergei Shchukin, 'Dance' (2.6 × 3.9 m) reduces five flame-red nudes to a ring of joined hands dancing on a green hill beneath a dark-blue sky. Matisse stripped away perspective and modelling to leave only line, flat colour, and rhythm — a watershed of 20th-century painting and one of the founding works of Fauvism. After Shchukin's collection was nationalised following the Russian Revolution, the painting entered the Hermitage.

Exhibition Venue

State Hermitage Museum

Saint Petersburg, Russia