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拍品專文
Chardin was admired by many of his contemporaries above all other painters, and critics -- then as now -- acknowledged that his art transcended the quotidian matters it depicted. In contrast with the luxurious tastes of the 18th century, the paintings with which Chardin first made his reputation were small still lifes, such as the present lot, depicting the objects of daily life with startling realism. On a stone ledge in the plainest of kitchen interiors, the artist has arranged everyday household objects with deliberation: a casserole, a copper pot, a mortar, a pestle and some eggs. In Chardin's paintings, the simplest of objects emerge from the delicately modulated half-light with poetic monumentality: perfect compositions of timeless, classical equilibrium are nevertheless charged with emotion. 'Who has expressed, as he has expressed, the life of inanimate objects?' asked Jules and Edmond de Goncourt (1864). The Abbé Le Blanc (1753) recognized that 'there are works which need no label to indicate their master. Such are works by Chardin, the painter who renders nature with the greatest accuracy and truth'. Le Blanc was the first to see in Chardin's art a visual equivalent of philosophy -- 'What M. de Fontenelle has said about a philosopher applies exactly to M. Chardin: He catches nature in the act' -- but almost two centuries later André Gide (1937) could claim that 'the substantial gravity in one of these paintings and the attention lavished on the object are as contemplative as ... a meditation by Descartes'. For Diderot, Chardin was, simply, 'the Great Magician'.
The present painting was purchased - probably directly from Chardin - by the eminent Swedish collector Count Gustav Adolf Sparre (1746-1794), who, as behove a young nobleman of the time, had been studying in Paris for four years beginning in 1768. Count Sparre, who during these years assembled the finest collection of its kind in private hands in Sweden, also bought two genre scenes by Chardin, The Drawing Lesson (Tokyo Fuji Art Museum) and The Right Education (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) which he might have acquired from La Live de Jully's collection in 1770, and from which he is known to have purchased Greuze's Laundress (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles). In 1837 the whole collection was bought from Sparre's daughter by Count Carl de Geer, and hung in the de Geer's castle until 1855, when he gave the collection to his granddaughter upon her marriage to Count Axel Fredrik Wachtmeister, owner of Wanas Castle. The Chardins remained at Wanas with the rest of the collection for over 100 years until 1982 when Count Axel Fredrik Wachtmeister's great grandson, the former Swedish Ambassador and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in Washington, Count Wilhelm Wachtmeister, brought them to the United States.
The present lot was paired in the Sparre Collection with another kitchen still life by Chardin (sold, Christie's New York, 21 October 1997, lot 130, for $662,500; Rosenberg 1983, no. 73A), although they were not necessarily conceived as pendants; only the present lot is fully signed and dated, but both paintings are presumed to have been executed in the same year, 1734. Only one other version of the present composition is known, also signed but not dated and of equally high quality: it was acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1980.
The present painting was purchased - probably directly from Chardin - by the eminent Swedish collector Count Gustav Adolf Sparre (1746-1794), who, as behove a young nobleman of the time, had been studying in Paris for four years beginning in 1768. Count Sparre, who during these years assembled the finest collection of its kind in private hands in Sweden, also bought two genre scenes by Chardin, The Drawing Lesson (Tokyo Fuji Art Museum) and The Right Education (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) which he might have acquired from La Live de Jully's collection in 1770, and from which he is known to have purchased Greuze's Laundress (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles). In 1837 the whole collection was bought from Sparre's daughter by Count Carl de Geer, and hung in the de Geer's castle until 1855, when he gave the collection to his granddaughter upon her marriage to Count Axel Fredrik Wachtmeister, owner of Wanas Castle. The Chardins remained at Wanas with the rest of the collection for over 100 years until 1982 when Count Axel Fredrik Wachtmeister's great grandson, the former Swedish Ambassador and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in Washington, Count Wilhelm Wachtmeister, brought them to the United States.
The present lot was paired in the Sparre Collection with another kitchen still life by Chardin (sold, Christie's New York, 21 October 1997, lot 130, for $662,500; Rosenberg 1983, no. 73A), although they were not necessarily conceived as pendants; only the present lot is fully signed and dated, but both paintings are presumed to have been executed in the same year, 1734. Only one other version of the present composition is known, also signed but not dated and of equally high quality: it was acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1980.