Nature morte

This 1758 'Nature morte', held in the Louvre's Department of Paintings, is one of a number of late Chardin still lifes in which the painter's compositional approach has been stripped to an almost meditative simplicity. By the late 1750s Chardin was experimenting with arrangements of very few objects, testing how much pictorial interest could be sustained by a minimum of visual material. The Louvre's collection of Chardin is among the most comprehensive in the world, assembled partly through royal acquisitions and partly through the bequests and purchases that built the national collection after the Revolution. The unspecified title 'Nature morte' places this work in a category of late works where the subject matters less than the manner of looking — a quality that made Chardin a touchstone for later critics and painters who valued intensity of observation over narrative content.

The late handling visible in this work is characterised by a somewhat rougher, more openly worked paint surface than Chardin's middle-period pictures. Forms are established through tonal massing rather than tight delineation, and the boundary between objects and their surroundings is treated with a loose, atmospheric softness. The overall effect is of great material solidity achieved with apparent ease.