How did Henri Matisse begin painting while recovering from appendicitis?

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Henri Matisse stands in a studio wearing a painter's smock, holding a palette beside a wooden ladder, with abstract artwork visible in the background. — Henri Matisse French artist Henri Matisse, photograph by Alvin Langdon Coburn, 1913.

In 1890, while recovering from a severe attack of appendicitis in Bohain, France, Henri Matisse began to paint.1

He initially started by copying colored reproductions found in a box of oil paints that his mother had given him. Following this, he began decorating his grandparents' home. This experience eventually led him to abandon his legal career in 1891 to pursue art professionally in Paris.12