Lot Essay
During the late 1720s and early 1730s Chardin created nearly thirty different still life compositions employing common kitchen utensils. His masterpiece of the genre, the large scale 'Ray Fish" (Louvre, Paris) was the artist's reception piece for his admission into the Academy in September 1728, and it is with numerous small scale kitchen still life compositions that he first made his name at the Exposition de la Jeunesse.
These deceptively simple rustic still lives, which had their source in seventeenth century Dutch paintings and the influence of the Le Nain brothers, were a wholly new contribution to French art, utterly without precedent in the sumptuous aristocratic still life tradition established by Largilliere, Desporte and Oudry. The above lot is a typical example of the type of painting on which Chardin built his reputation and developed his clientele.
That these still lives were enormously popular is attested to by the fact that almost all of the more than two dozen compositions exist in mutliples versions. The few which are only known in a single version may be the result of a composition which could not be executed to the artist's satisfaction and were abandoned after only one prototype 1ersion was completed. Alternatively a composition known from a sole example may be due to the loss of others in the series over time.
Five versions of this compostion, including the above lot, are known: North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh (the earliest version dated 1731); Dumbarton Oaks Museum (dated 1743); the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena and the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford. Old references to the above lot record it as indistinctly signed and dated 1732 but this is no longer legible. Four other versions of this composition are known but only through photographs, and still others are recorded in early sale catalogues although these are impossible to identify with any certainty.
That Chardin continued to replicate this composition for over two decades attests not only to the great popularity of this subject, but to the artist's own satisfaction with its artistic merits. However, as he is known not to have employed studio assistants he would have painted each version himself. The known version reveal variations. Although Chardin carefully6 built up a composition which could not be significantly altered, he did adjust specific details.
These deceptively simple rustic still lives, which had their source in seventeenth century Dutch paintings and the influence of the Le Nain brothers, were a wholly new contribution to French art, utterly without precedent in the sumptuous aristocratic still life tradition established by Largilliere, Desporte and Oudry. The above lot is a typical example of the type of painting on which Chardin built his reputation and developed his clientele.
That these still lives were enormously popular is attested to by the fact that almost all of the more than two dozen compositions exist in mutliples versions. The few which are only known in a single version may be the result of a composition which could not be executed to the artist's satisfaction and were abandoned after only one prototype 1ersion was completed. Alternatively a composition known from a sole example may be due to the loss of others in the series over time.
Five versions of this compostion, including the above lot, are known: North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh (the earliest version dated 1731); Dumbarton Oaks Museum (dated 1743); the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena and the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford. Old references to the above lot record it as indistinctly signed and dated 1732 but this is no longer legible. Four other versions of this composition are known but only through photographs, and still others are recorded in early sale catalogues although these are impossible to identify with any certainty.
That Chardin continued to replicate this composition for over two decades attests not only to the great popularity of this subject, but to the artist's own satisfaction with its artistic merits. However, as he is known not to have employed studio assistants he would have painted each version himself. The known version reveal variations. Although Chardin carefully6 built up a composition which could not be significantly altered, he did adjust specific details.