Glass of Water and Coffeepot

Glass of Water and Coffeepot by Chardin, painted around 1760 and now at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, reduces still life to its most essential visual elements — transparent glass, opaque ceramic, a few surrounding herbs. These late still lifes, sometimes called his 'études' or informal studies, were long regarded as secondary to his more finished Salon compositions until the twentieth century recognized in their radical simplicity a precursor to later European modernism. Chardin's old age — he was in his sixties when he painted this — brought a freedom of handling and a willingness to leave things unresolved that younger artists would later associate with avant-garde directness. The Carnegie's Chardin joins American museum collections that recognized his importance early in the twentieth century.

The few objects are rendered with Chardin's mature technique at its most economical, each form built through subtle tonal gradations. The transparent glass and opaque coffeepot create a dialogue of light and opacity that is the painting's primary visual subject.