You are reading an old version of the documentation (v3.0.0). For the latest version see https://matplotlib.org/stable/api/_as_gen/matplotlib.artist.Artist.stale.html
Version 3.0.0
matplotlib
Fork me on GitHub

matplotlib.artist.Artist.stale

Artist.stale

If the artist is 'stale' and needs to be re-drawn for the output to match the internal state of the artist.