Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin

However, after his death in 1779 oblivion rapidly overtook his name and art until his rediscovery in the mid-nineteenth century by the ‘Realist’ critic Théophile Thoré, also the champion of Vermeer, and the Goncourt brothers who revived the taste for French rococo art.

Chardin’s first publicly exhibited works were still lifes and it was remarkable that a painter in this ‘lowly’ genre should be admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture as he was in 1728 with his presentation piece of The Ray (musée du Louvre, Paris). He supplemented his income from still-life painting with the production of genre scenes, often depicting quiet domestic interiors or children at play. He exhibited from 1737 at the Salon, whose exhibitions he would later organize and won the approval both of the King Louis XV and the influential critic Dennis Diderot. His still lifes ranged from large, complex compositions such as the 1729 Buffet (musée du Louvre, Paris) and the Still Life with Attributes of the Arts (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) of 1766 to simple, small still lifes of fruit such as the Bowl of Strawberries (Private Collection) and paintings of simple kitchen implements with basic provisions such as eggs or fish.