1732
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
The White Tablecloth is a 1732 oil by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, a Baroque work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
You see a simple still life with a white tablecloth, some food, and utensils. This painting is interesting because it shows how the artist was influenced by Dutch and Flemish works. He used common motifs like a foreshortened knife and an overturned glass. Check out the technique of glazing to learn more about how it was used in paintings like this one.
Jean Siméon Chardin won acclaim for the still lifes and quiet scenes of middle-class domestic life that he exhibited at salons sponsored by the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In early still lifes like this one, he incorporated motifs common to 17th-century Dutch and Flemish works: the foreshortened knife, the handle of which protrudes over the table’s edge; the overturned glass; and the remains of a meal. The work’s unusual shape reveals its original function as a screen for the opening of a fireplace. Viewed at floor level, the screen would have conveyed the illusion of a…
Probably Alexandre Gabriel Descamps, Paris; sold Hôtel des Ventes Mobilières, Paris 21 April 1853, no. 28 as Nature morte for Fr 600. Sold Hôtel des Commissaires-Priseurs, Paris, 20-21 December 1858, no. 40. Laurent Laperlier, Paris, by 1860, to at least 1865 [see Bürger 1860, Lejeune 1864, and Blanc 1865]. Léon Michel-Lévy, Paris by 1907; sold, Galerie Georges Petit, 17-18 June 1925, no. 125, to Wildenstein for Fr 202,000 [see Ricci, 1925]. David David-Weill, Paris by 1926 [see Henriot 1926 cat. of David-Weill collection]; David-Weill collection on deposit at Wildenstein & Co., New York, by…
Paris, [Galerie Martinet], Boulevard des Italiens, Tableaux et dessins de l'école française principalement du XVIIIe siècle tirés de collections d’amateurs, 1860, no. 351, as Le Cervelas. Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Exposition Chardin et Fragonard, 1907, no. 19, as La Table servie. New York, Wildenstein, David-Weill Pictures, [1937], no. 3, no cat. New York, Wildenstein, (organized by the Institute of Modern Art, Boston), The Sources of Modern Painting: A Loan Exhibition Assembled from American Public and Private Collections, 1939, no. 9. New York, Parke-Bernet, French and English Art…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Jean Siméon Chardin (French: ; November 2, 1699 – December 6, 1779) was an 18th-century French painter.
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