 Rosenberg had bought the painting directly from Matisse in 1937 and had it stored at the time of the Nazi invasion in a bank vault in Libourne, a commune in the Gironde in Aquitaine, southwestern France.The ERR entered the vault in March 1941, and, after cataloging at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in September 1941, it was earmarked for Göring's private collection.Then in the hands of various dealers during the Nazi period, post-war in the late 1940s it was bought by Norwegian shipping magnate Niels Onstad from the Paris-based dealer Henri Bénézit.