More than 60 Henri Matisse artworks donated to Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris | Henri Matisse

The Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris has received an “extraordinarily generous” donation of 61 works by Henri Matisse, which are kept in the artist’s family.

Many of the donated artworks, including paintings, drawings, engravings, lithographs and a sculpture, feature the artist’s daughter, Marguerite.

The donation, which the museum described as extraordinary and historic, was made by Barbara Dauphin Duthuit, the wife of Matisse’s grandson Claude, who died in New York in 2011.

Many of the works were loaned to MAM for the Matisse et Marguerite exhibition last year, but the museum said its decision to allow Duthuit to keep the works came as a complete surprise. In 2013, Duthuit gifted Marguerite with a Black Cat, one of the best-known portraits of Matisse’s daughter, to the Pompidou Center.

Marguerite, Matisse’s favorite subject, was born during his relationship with one of his models, Caroline Joblau, while he was studying art in Paris. The artist recognized the child, and when he married four years later, he brought Marguerite to live with his new family, which included her half-siblings Jean and Pierre.

Six-year-old Marguerite contracted diphtheria and had emergency tracheotomy. As seen in portraits, she concealed her scar for many years with high-collared blouses or ribbons, until she had surgery to repair the scar at the age of 26.

Although her health remained fragile, Marguerite joined the French resistance during the second world war, was tortured by the Gestapo, and was threatened with being sent to a Nazi concentration camp.

He had taken up painting during the war and participated in group exhibitions, but had given up devoting himself to becoming his father’s assistant and manager until his death in November 1954, aged 84. He was still cataloging his father’s works when he died in Paris in 1982, at the age of 87.

Matisse chose to keep his art in the family rather than sell it, making the donation particularly important. The 61 pieces will join 20 Matisse works already in the museum.

Fabrice Hergott, director of MAM, described Marguerite’s portraits as “extremely beautiful and moving”.

“This extraordinarily generous gesture is testament to Madame Duthuit’s deep commitment and trust in the museum, which became Marguerite’s new home for decades and centuries to come,” he said.