Barbara Dauphin Duthuit, the wife of Henri Matisse's grandson, has donated 61 works by Matisse to the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. The gift includes seven paintings, numerous drawings, etchings, lithographs, and illustrated books, most of which feature portraits of the artist's eldest daughter, Marguerite (1894–1982). Many of these works were on view in France for the first time during the museum's recent exhibition “Matisse and Marguerite: Through Her Father’s Eyes.” The donation spans from Marguerite's childhood to 1945, including pieces that reference her convalescence from diphtheria and her survival of Gestapo torture during World War II.
This donation significantly expands the museum's Matisse holdings, which previously numbered only twenty works, including two monumental versions of *La Danse* (1930–1933). It also continues Barbara Duthuit's pattern of generosity toward French public collections, following her 2013 gift of *Marguerite au chat noir* (1910) to the Centre Pompidou and her October 2024 gift of *Nature morte à la statuette africaine* (1907) to the Matisse museum in Nice. The gift ensures that a substantial body of Matisse's intimate family portraits will remain accessible to the public, deepening the museum's connection to the artist's personal history.