Jean Siméon Chardin was an 18th-century French painter. He is considered a master of still life, and is also noted for his genre paintings which depict kitchen maids, children, and domestic activities. Carefully balanced composition, soft diffusion of light, and granular impasto characterize his work.
Paintings by Jean Siméon Chardin
Boy with a Spinning-Top (1738)
Boy with a Spinning-Top or Child with a Teetotum is a 1738 oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Jean Siméon Chardin, now in the Louvre in Paris, which acquired it in 1907.
It is based on a 1735 work now in the São Paulo Museum of Art and shows Auguste-Gabriel, son of the jeweller Charles Godefroy, contemplating a teetotum or spinning top. The painting is in line with Age of Enlightenment ideas on childhood and play, especially those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. On the table in the background are an inkwell, a pen and books, whilst a drawer in the table is open to show a porte-crayon.
The Ray (Chardin) (1727)
The Ray (French: La raie) is a still-life oil painting by the 18th-century French painter Jean Siméon Chardin depicting a gutted skate, suspended above a kitchen table, surrounded by an array of utensils, oysters, and other provisions. The piece is regarded as one of Chardin's most important still life works and played a vital role in his acceptance into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1728. It was first exhibited at the Exposition de la Jeunesse [fr] on 3 June 1728 and has long been held by the Louvre in Paris.
This painting is widely noted for its visceral depiction of the lacerated skate, its emphasis on materiality and bodily interior, and the arrangement of domestic objects within a kitchen environment, which has been interpreted as challenging conventional approaches to still life painting in the eighteenth century.
Soap Bubbles (Chardin)
Soap Bubbles refers to a series of early 18th-century paintings by French artist Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. Done in oil on canvas, Bubbles - Chardin's first figural painting - depicts a young man blowing a soap bubble. Chardin's original work is currently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and two later versions of the painting are in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum and the National Gallery of Art.
Though he had been trained as an academic artist, Chardin often shirked away from academic art. Notably, he resisted painting figures using models, instead choosing to paint from memory or conceptually during the early stages of his career. His first painting in which he used a model to paint a picture was Soap Bubbles, thus making said painting his first figural painting. Chardin exhibited his work at the 1739 Paris Salon, though which version of Soap Bubbles he presented is not known.
The Buffet (Chardin) (1728)
The Buffet is an oil-on-canvas still life painting executed in 1728 by Jean Siméon Chardin. It and The Ray were Chardin's reception pieces to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture; both are now in the Louvre.
Saying Grace (Chardin)
Saying Grace or The Prayer Before a Meal (French: Le Bénédicité) is the title of several paintings by French artist Jean Simeon Chardin, one of which was given as a gift to Louis XV. The subject of the painting, a middle-class French family saying grace before a meal, is one of everyday bourgeois tranquillity – Chardin's area of interest – with an uncharacteristic touch of sentimentality.
Chardin, who had made his fame painting still life, had at this point in his career started also to include human figures in his works. He painted several versions of Le Bénédicité, three of which were exhibited at the Salon, in 1740, 1746 and 1761. The original, from 1740, was given as a gift to the King. The painting fell into oblivion ten years after the death of Louis XV, but was rediscovered in 1845. Another version was kept by the artist throughout his life, and eventually ended up in the Musée du Louvre, through the large bequest of Louis La Caze in 1869. The version from the 1761 Salon – a horizontal composition – is now lost.
The Attributes of Music, the Arts and the Sciences (1765)
The Attributes of the Arts, The Attributes of Music and The Attributes of the Sciences are three paintings by the French painter Jean Siméon Chardin. They were commissioned in 1764 by the marquis de Marigny, younger brother of Madame de Pompadour and exhibited at the Salon the following year. At the centre of Arts is a model for Edmé Bouchardon's statue personifying Paris for the fontaine de Grenelle. Arts and Music are now in the Musée du Louvre and Sciences has disappeared.
The Kitchen Maid (Chardin) (1799)
The Kitchen Maid is a 1738 oil-on-canvas painting by Jean Simeon Chardin. The painting features a young kitchen maid in a Hollandish kitchen, taking a break from her work. The work was popular, and Chardin had made four different copies; with three of them present in various collections in the modern day.
Chardin was born in Paris, the son of a cabinetmaker, and rarely left the city. Chardin entered into a marriage contract with Marguerite Saintard in 1723, whom he did not marry until 1731. According to one nineteenth-century writer, at a time when it was hard for unknown painters to come to the attention of the Royal Academy, he first found notice by displaying a painting at the "small Corpus Christi" on the Place Dauphine. Van Loo, passing by in 1720, bought it and later assisted the young painter.
Girl with a Racquet (1740)
Girl with a Racquet or Girl Playing with a Racquet is an oil-on-canvas painting of a young girl holding a racquet and shuttlecock by the French artist Jean Siméon Chardin. He exhibited it at the Paris Salon of 1737 as a pendant to The House of Cards (Washington) – he also exhibited Woman Playing in a Fountain and The Laundress (Stockholm) in the same Salon. It is now in the Uffizi in Florence, whose collections it entered in 1951.
The Laundress (Chardin) (1735)
The Laundress (French: La Blanchisseuse) or A Young Girl Doing Laundry (Une petite femme s'occupant à savonner) is the title of three oil paintings by the French artist Jean Siméon Chardin. The subject of laundresses, also known as washerwomen, was a popular one in art, especially in France.
Signed in the top left, the prime version of The Laundress dates to between 1733 and 1740. It formed part of the Crozat collection, which was mostly acquired by Catherine II of Russia on the advice of Denis Diderot in 1772, and so is now in the Hermitage Museum. It measures 38 by 48 cm.
The Attributes of Civilian and Military Music
The Attributes of Civilian Music and The Attributes of Military Music are a pair of oil-on-canvas paintings in oval format by Jean Siméon Chardin, commissioned in 1766 by Charles-Nicolas Cochin for the pediments above the doors to the music room in his Château de Bellevue at Meudon (Hauts-de-Seine). They were exhibited at the Salon of 1767 and installed in the Château the following year. The Château's goods were later confiscated by the state and the paintings were sold at auction. They were acquired by the portrait painter Jean-Sébastien Rouillard, then by François Marcille and his son Eudoxe. Via a gift from Eudoxe's descendants and from the Société des amis du Louvre, the Louvre Museum was able to purchase them in 2010.
The House of Cards (1740)
The House of Cards is an oil painting by Jean Siméon Chardin. It was painted c. 1740 – c. 1741. It measures 60 cm × 72 cm (23.5 in × 28.5 in). It hangs in the National Gallery, in London. There are three other versions of the same motif at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington D.C., the Uffizi, in Florence and at Waddesdon Manor, in England. Chardin painted scenes that found favor with all classes of Parisian society.
The painting shows a young boy standing at a small wooden table, who is building carefully a house of playing cards. The table has a drawer open and a green table cover. The boy was named Jean-Alexandre Le Noir, and he was the son of furniture dealer and cabinetmaker, Jean-Jacques Le Noir. The theme of children building houses of cards was usual at the time.
The Copper Cistern (1733)
The Copper Cistern by Jean Siméon Chardin (Louvre MI 1037)