Nature morte avec deux pieds de céleri, boîte à épices, torchon, terrine, plat, écumoire et morceau de viande

Chardin's 1733 kitchen still life with celery stalks, a spice box, a cloth, a terrine, a plate, a skimmer, and a piece of meat continues his exploration of working kitchen still life. Like its 1732 companion, this work depicts the actual equipment of a French bourgeois kitchen with respectful attention — the utensils of daily life elevated to the status of art through the quality of contemplative observation. These works entered the collection of the Lavalard brothers of Roye, provincial collectors of the nineteenth century who assembled an important holding of French eighteenth-century painting.

The arrangement of kitchen objects is deliberately varied in texture and material — the ceramic terrine beside metal implements, rough cloth contrasting with smooth porcelain — giving Chardin maximum opportunity to display his powers of differentiated description. His famously tactile brushwork makes each material recognizable through paint alone.