# The 26 Best Henri Matisse Paintings

> Fauvist shocks hang here beside hushed studio interiors and canvases that drift toward abstraction. Pick the one you'd stand in front of longest.

*By YPB Team · Published November 8, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-26-best-henri-matisse-paintings*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Dance** — score 1000/1000
   A 1910 canvas of five red dancers in a ring, commissioned by Sergei Shchukin and held by the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
2. **The Dinner Table** — score 785/1000
   An 1897 dinner-table interior whose Impressionist light drew hostile reviews at that year's Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts salon.
3. **Woman with a Hat** — score 750/1000
   Fauvist portrait of the artist's wife Amélie, shown at the 1905 Salon d'Automne and now at SFMOMA.
4. **The Red Studio** — score 700/1000
   A 1911 view of Matisse's Issy-les-Moulineaux studio flooded in Venetian red, in the Museum of Modern Art's collection since 1949.
5. **Music** — score 642/1000
   The 1910 companion to Dance for Shchukin's Moscow mansion, showing five figures playing and singing, held by the Hermitage.
6. **Piano Lesson** — score 642/1000
   A 1916 canvas of the artist's son Pierre at the piano in the family home at Issy-les-Moulineaux, now at MoMA.
7. **French Window at Collioure** — score 642/1000
   A 1914 Collioure window whose central black band covers an earlier balcony view, held by the Centre Pompidou.
8. **Interior with Eggplants** — score 576/1000
   A 1911 patterned interior in fragile glue-based distemper, sent by Matisse to the Musée de Grenoble in 1922.
9. **Goldfish and Palette** — score 576/1000
   A 1914 studio composition pairing a goldfish bowl with the artist's palette, painted on the Quai Saint-Michel and now at MoMA.
10. **Self-Portrait in a Striped T-shirt** — score 500/1000
   A 1906 self-portrait in a striped sailor's jersey, held by the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.
11. **The Moroccans** — score 500/1000
   A 1915–16 painting recalling Morocco in three zones of architecture, still life and figures, held by the Museum of Modern Art.
12. **The Conversation** — score 500/1000
   A 1908–12 face-off between Matisse in striped pyjamas and his seated wife, bought by Shchukin and now at the Hermitage.
13. **Portrait of André Derain** — score 409/1000
   A 1905 Collioure portrait of fellow Fauve André Derain, held by Tate in London.
14. **Goldfish** — score 409/1000
   A 1912 still life of orange goldfish in a glass bowl surrounded by plants, held by the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.
15. **Open Window, Collioure** — score 409/1000
   A 1905 view of boats in the harbour through Matisse's window in Collioure, now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
16. **The Dessert: Harmony in Red** — score 409/1000
   A 1908 dining-room scene for Russian collector Sergei Shchukin, first painted in blue-green before Matisse reworked it in red; now at the Hermitage.
17. **The Young Sailor II** — score 409/1000
   A 1906 Collioure portrait of a local young fisherman set against a flat pink ground, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
18. **Luxe, Calme et Volupté** — score 300/1000
   A 1904 pointillist beach scene painted after a summer with Paul Signac in Saint-Tropez, titled after a Baudelaire poem and held by the Musée d'Orsay.
19. **The Green Stripe** — score 300/1000
   A 1905 portrait of Amélie Matisse split by a green stripe down her face, held by the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.
20. **Zorah on the Terrace** — score 300/1000
   A 1912 portrait of a young Moroccan woman, the centre panel of Matisse's Moroccan triptych at the Pushkin Museum.
21. **Le Bonheur de vivre** — score 300/1000
   A 1905–06 pastoral of nudes in a vividly coloured landscape, shown at the 1906 Salon des Indépendants and now at the Barnes Foundation.
22. **View of Notre-Dame** — score 300/1000
   A 1914 near-abstract view of Notre-Dame from Matisse's studio window on the Quai Saint-Michel, held by MoMA.
23. **Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra)** — score 0/1000
   A 1907 reclining nude recalling Matisse's trip to Biskra in Algeria, part of the Cone Collection at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
24. **Window at Tangier** — score 0/1000
   A 1912 view over Tangier from the Hôtel Villa de France, the left panel of the Moroccan triptych at the Pushkin Museum.
25. **Bathers by a River** — score 0/1000
   A monumental canvas of four stylized nudes begun in 1909 and finished in 1917, held by the Art Institute of Chicago.
26. **Odalisque with Red Culottes** — score 0/1000
   A 1921 odalisque painted in Nice and bought by the French state in 1922, now at the Centre Pompidou.

Tags: art, france, paintings, henri matisse, fauvism