Dozens of essays and studies have been written about Matisse, the recognized leader of the European avant-garde. However, the topic "Matisse and Russia" was usually not touched upon in them. But it was with Russia that Matisse connected a lot. And not only that the artist visited distant Moscow. Already in the late 1900s, thanks to his most active buyers of that time, Russian collectors Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, Matisse's art penetrated into Russia. A special role in the creative fate of the artist was played by his "ideal cartridge" - Sergei Shchukin, who bought almost four dozen of his paintings.