LONDON.- It is what every collector and every art professional dreams of, finding a masterpiece by one of the world’s greatest artists that has been forgotten in a drawer, unknown to the world.

This is exactly what happened when Dr Frederick Mulder CBE and Anne-Françoise Gavanon, the directors of Frederick Mulder Ltd, one of the world’s best known specialists in original European printmaking from 1470 to 1970, set their eyes on a Matisse cut-out five years ago. Five years is what it took them to convince the owner to depart from a beloved masterpiece. In the end, the owner decided to sell Mulder not one, but three cut-outs. Not even the blockbuster exhibition Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs at the Tate Modern and Museum Of Modern Art in New York succeeded in bringing many cut-outs to the market. Indeed only three cut-outs have come up for sale since the exhibition ended, and only four in the previous 10 years. Owners of Matisse cut-outs cherish them and rarely let them go.

The Frederick Mulder find presents a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see these unique works in one place and discover Matisse’s final artistic triumph. They will be on view at the Frederick Mulder stand A40 at Masterpiece from Thurs 25th June – Wed 1st July (preview is Wed 24th). The gallery will be showing them alongside famous and extremely rare Picasso etchings and linocuts.

Two of the three cut-outs were shown in Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs at the Tate Modern and MOMA with the third having never been seen in public before. All three of the cut-outs include elements of drawing by Matisse; they are original, unique records of his creative process, rich in texture and brightly coloured. The three works are valued in total at more than £2m, and with such scarcity on the market, this is a rare opportunity to own one.

Anne-Françoise Gavanon says: “It was an amazing moment when the cut-outs arrived. They were breathtakingly beautiful with the colours as fresh as the day they were made. They had all the qualities of masterpieces.”

The three cut-outs are maquettes for the covers of two books, one an exhibition catalogue for the Berggruen Gallery from 1954, the other the book Apollinaire by the writer and artist André Rouveyre. The latter is a bold and playful book with a bright blue cover set against Matisse’s spikey white text and yellow flowers. The book’s subject is the influential poet, writer and critic Guillaume Apollinaire.

A giant of modern art Henri Matisse spent the final chapter of his career ‘carving into colour’, his term for his spectacular cut-outs. Matisse had used the cut-out as a preparatory aid for his paintings for many years, but it was only in his seventies when ill health kept him chair bound that he began to consider his cut-outs as artworks in their own right: he had invented a new medium. From snowflowers to dancers, circus scenes and a famous snail, the work was done between 1936 and 1954. Bold, exuberant and often large in scale, the cut-outs have an engaging simplicity coupled with incredible creative sophistication.