| Florilège des Amours par Ronsard
Matisse started working on the Florilège project, in collaboration with the publisher Albert Skira in 1941, but it took 7 years for the work to be completed. The delay was due partly to the war and difficulties with the font types, but also to the enormous amount of time and attention that Matisse himself spent on the project, from the actual creation of the images down to all the minutiae of the printing of the lithographs.
Correspondence shows that for long periods, from 1941 onwards, Matisse was completely absorbed on the work on Ronsard. The book was finally printed and published in 1948. Mourlot printed the lithographs. The total edition was of 320 copies; each copy was numbered, and signed by Matisse on the justification page. Nowadays Florilège des Amours is universally considered as the most typical and important livre d'artiste by Matisse: of particular note is the tone of sepia used for the lithographs, unique to this series.
The inspiration for the images is only loosely connected with the Ronsard poems; Matisse writes, at an early stage, of his desire for doing, above all, "..some Matisse.." for the project, no doubt meaning that he intended to draw inspiration on his personal imagery rather than the poems.
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