The Dessert: Harmony in Red was painted in 1908. ‘In his Paris studio with its windows looking out over a monastery garden, Matisse created one of his most important works of the period 1908-1913. The artist himself called this a “decorative panel” and it was intended for the dining room in the Moscow mansion of the Russian collector Sergey Shchukin [and is now in the Hermitage]. Matisse turned to a motif common in his painting: a room decorated with vases, fruits and flowers. Yet, as he wrote in 1908, “the basis of my thinking has not changed, but the very thinking has evolved and my means of expression have followed on.”‘ (here).