Canard colvert à la bigarade

A mallard duck accompanies a bitter orange in this early game still life from 1730 at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris. The hunting museum provides an appropriate institutional home for this work: the tradition of depicting game animals as hunting trophies was deeply embedded in aristocratic culture, and Chardin's game still lifes participated in this tradition while transforming it through his unprecedented attention to paint quality over display. The mallard's iridescent plumage — its green head, chestnut breast, and white collar — provided exactly the kind of complex color relationships Chardin exploited to demonstrate his mastery of natural surface effects. The early 1730 date confirms this as one of his foundational game still lifes.

The mallard's head feathers, with their distinctive green iridescence, present one of nature's most challenging surfaces to paint—color that shifts with the angle of viewing. Chardin captures this iridescence through subtle variations of green, blue, and purple applied with characteristic precision. The orange provides warm chromatic contrast to the cool tones of the duck.