Drawing Painting By Denise Arokas Last Muse Of The Pentecost Henri Matisse. Born in Avignon (Vaucluse) on March 2, 1932, Denise Arokas had an atypical life. Raised with her older brother and sister by parents who were hosiery workers, Denise Arokas narrowly escaped deportation while her parents and brother were arrested and then transferred to Auschwitz in 1943. Later, like many young girls of the time who had a taste of Elle or Vogue magazines, she was drawn to the world of fashion and Parisian life. She took courses at the Red Cross in Paris to become a nurse and did internships in hospitals while dreaming of becoming a model designer and doing fashion drawings. On the recommendation of Lydia Delectorskaya, she was hired between 1951 and 1952 to be a lady-in-waiting for the painter Henri Matisse who was 81 years old at the time. She would become one of his muses and certainly one of his last models. In 1953, in contact with the Parisian world, she became a model for the greatest couturiers. Known under the name of Rebecca, she worked in particular with Jean Patou, Balenciaga and Courrèges. At Matisse, she continued to draw and produced sketches of nudes, watercolors and charcoals. She had already parted with several drawings that Matisse had made of her in 2001, then in 2015 with fashion drawings that she had drawn herself, at auctions. Authenticity:Original Type:Drawing Material:Red chalk Theme:Character