Matinée de Septembre (or September Morn) was painted over three summers ending in 1912. Paul Chabas first exhibited the painting in the Paris Salon of 1912, where it won a medal but did not create any sensation. The next year, the painting was displayed in the window of an art gallery in Chicago. It came to the attention of Chicago’s mayor, Carter Harrison, Jr., who charged the owner of the gallery with indecency. The resulting court case, which the art dealer won, made Matinée de Septembre famous.
Two months after the conclusion of the Chicago trial, Anthony Comstock, a self-appointed crusader against "vice," threatened a New York City art dealer who was displaying the painting in his window. Comstock, however, never followed up his threat with legal action. Public relations pioneer Harry Reichenbach claimed to have brought Matinée de Septembre to Comstock's attention as a contract job for the targeted gallery, but his claim has been questioned. Lithograph copies of the artwork were sold for over a decade, extending the success that followed the scandal.
Ultimately, critics labelled the painting as kitsch. They thought it needed more interesting artistic features, such as contrast, coordinated lines, and a worthy subject. Matinée de Septembre has never lacked admirers, however, and copies of the image are still sold on postcards and reproduced prints.