Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin

Bio

The elevation of Chardin to full membership of the Royal Academy of Paintings and Sculpture in 1728 coupled with his position as Treasurer, the officer responsible for the hanging of the pictures exhibited at the Salon, marks a turning point in the history of French painting. Hitherto, the ‘hierarchy of genres’ had been considered immutable and, indeed, the Academic authorities struggled to maintain the primacy of history painting throughout the remainder of the century. Nonetheless, it was Chardin’s extraordinary faculty which accorded him the prominence he enjoyed during his lifetime and the fame that has largely eclipsed the talents of artists such as Desportes and Oudry, still life painters in the grand decorative tradition. While, like the latter two artists, Chardin himself produced several large-scale decorations, it was as the painter of small scale, intimate kitchen still lifes that he transformed this genre.