c. 1748-53／Oil on canvas
41.0 x 47.0 cm
Permanent Exhibition: From the Renaissance to the 20th Century – 500 Years of Western Paintings
Exhibition period：Saturday April 12～Sunday June 22, 2025
Permanent Exhibition Gallery 3 in the New Wingof Tokyo Fuji Art Museum
Permanent Exhibition: From the Renaissance to the 20th Century – 500 Years of Western Paintings
Exhibition period: Saturday July 12～Monday September 15, 2025
Permanent Exhibition Gallery 3 in the New Wing of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum
SUMMARY
Exhibited at the Salon in 1753, this small piece is full of charm that is characteristic to Chardin, such as sophisticated materials, glazes of paints, quiet neutral color tones, exquisite representations of light which can be sensed even in shaded parts, speculative and dignified atmosphere of figures, and serene and contemplative air in the room. His 40 years of painting career can be divided into three periods, of which the intermediate period is referred to as the “period of genre painting” which is from the 1730s to early 1750s. During this period, his still-life paintings were not popular in the court which preferred the gorgeous and feminine elegance, but only supported by a portion of connoisseurs, painters and collectors. Nonetheless, important lords of other countries came to be listed as the customers of his genre paintings. The artist’s most representative works of this period include the Boy with a Spinning-Top and The Prayer before Meal: Both are housed in the Louvre Museum. In 1749, Chardin presented two paintings The Drawing Lesson and The Good Education to Swedish Queen Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, of which the former one was completed earlier than the latter and exhibited at the 1748 Salon. Several years later, Chardin created the second variations of the two paintings whose compositions were the same as the original ones. The second ones were made for a prominent collector Ange-Laurent La Live de Jully and exhibited at the 1753 Salon. One of them is the work shown here. At the auction in 1770, this work left Live de Jully and passed into the possession of a Swedish. Since then, it had been possessed over many years by this owner’s descendants. In 1979, it was shown to the public again in a large exhibition of Chardin. In this exhibition, the paired two paintings The Drawing Lesson and The Good Education showed an exceptionally rare feature on their frames: The artist's name ‘Chardin’ was written in black and in a beautiful hand which could be identified clearly as that of the 18th century. Since there wasn’t a practice of “attaching a nameplate of artist to a frame” at the time, as today’s museums all over the world do, such a practice that the first owner Live de Jully did is reputed as a very pioneering practice for that time in terms of museology. The Good Education, which is paired with this work that had been in the collection of a Swedish family, is now housed in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
ARTIST
Jean-Siméon Chardin
1699-1779
List of artworks by the same artist
INFORMATION
Tuesday, May 26 - Sunday, August 16, 2020
Through the Eyes of René Huyghe: The Splendor of French Paintings — Formation and Transformation of the “Grande Manière” Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts (Osaka, Japan)
Tuesday, February 4 - Sunday, March 29, 2020
Through the Eyes of René Huyghe: The Splendor of French Paintings — Formation and Transformation of the “Grande Manière” Kyushu National Museum (Fukuoka, Japan)
Saturday, January 12 - Saturday, May 4, 2019
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Shanghai PowerLong Museum (Shanghai, China)
Tuesday, October 23 - Sunday, December 23, 2018
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tsinghua University Art Museum (Beijing, China)
Saturday, July 9 - Sunday, August 28, 2016
300 years of Western Painting from Baroque, Rococo to École de Paris Nagano Prefectural Shinano Art Museum (Nagano, Japan)
Saturday, June 27 - Sunday, August 30, 2015
Feast of beauty: 300 years of Western Painting From Baroque, Rococo to Ecole de Paris Yawatahama Citizen Gallery (Ehime, Japan)
Wednesday, April 29 - Sunday, June 21, 2015
Feast of beauty: 300 years of Western Painting From Baroque, Rococo to Ecole de Paris The Tokushima Modern Art Museum (Tokushima, Japan)
Saturday, September 8 - Sunday, January 6, 2013
Chardin Exhibition Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo (Tokyo, Japan)
Saturday, June 6 - Monday, July 20, 2009
The Intersection of Paintings and Photographs Hiroshima Museum of Art (Hiroshima, Japan)
Saturday, October 5 - Monday, November 4, 2002
Art of the West & Art of Japan Exhibition: Monet, Renoir, Cezanne… Ikeno Taiga, Tani Buncho, and Others Shimane Art Museum (Shimane, Japan)
Saturday, September 7 - Sunday, September 29, 2002
Four Centuries of Occidental Paintings from the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection SOGO Museum of Art (Kanagawa, Japan)
Saturday, July 20 - Saturday, August 31, 2002
Masterpieces of the East and West to Learn with Parents and Children Fuji Art Museum (Shizuoka, Japan)
Thursday, May 16 - Sunday, June 23, 2002
Four Centuries of Occidental Paintings from the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art (Kumamoto, Japan)
Sunday, October 1 - Sunday, December 3, 2000
Masterpieces of Western Paintings from the Renaissance to the 20th Century National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall (Taipei, Taiwan)
Tuesday, October 14 - Sunday, November 30, 1997
Masterpieces of Western Oil Painting from the TFAM Collection Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong, China)
Friday, October 16 - Thursday, November 5, 1992
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting: The Paintings in 20th Century from the Renaissance to Impressionism China Art Gallery (Beijing, China)
Saturday, November 3 - Sunday, December 2, 1990
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Art Museum (Yongin-gun, Kyunggi-do, South Korea)
Saturday, September 22 - Sunday, October 21, 1990
Masterpieces of European Oil Painting Ho-Am Gallery (Seoul, South Korea)
Provenance: M. de la Live de Jully (1725-1779) in 1753; his sale, Paris 1770 Court Sparre (1746-1794), Sweden By inheritance to Count C. Greer, Wanås, 1837 His niece, Elizabeth Wachtmeister, 1855 And by descent in the same family at Wanås Exhibited: Paris, Salon, 1753, no.59, “ Deux tableaux pendants sous le meme no. L’un représente un Dessinateur d’après le Mercure de M. Pigalle et l’autre une jeune fille qui recite son Evangile.Ces deux tableux, tirés du Cabinet de M. de La Live, sont répétés d’aprés les originaux placés dans le Cabinet du Roy de Suède. Le dessinateur est exposé pour la seconde fois, avec des changements.” Stockholm, National Museum, Liljevalchs, Fransk Konst I svensk privat ago, 1926, nos.27, 56 Stockholm, National Museum, Fem sekler Fransk Konst,1958, nos.74,75, pl.27 (L’Etude du Dessin) Paris, Grand Palais, Chardin, 1979, nos.94,95, both repr. Cleveland Museum of Art, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Chardin, 1979, nos.94,95, both repr.
Literature: F. Sander, National Museum Bridrag till Taflegalleriets historia, Stockholm, 1872-76,4 vols, p.80, nos.78,79 O.Granberg Catalogue raisonné des tablaux anciens inoconnus jusqu’ici dans les collections privées de Suéde, Stockholm, 1886, p.293, nos.24,25 Catalogue of the Wanås Collection (Göthe) , 1895, p.12, nos.6,7 E.F.S. Dilke, “Chardin et ses œuvres à Potsdam et à Stockholm”, Gazette des Beaux Arts, vol.ⅩⅩⅡ,1899, p.334, note 5, pp.340-341 E.F.S. Dilke, French Painters of the 18th Century, London, 1899, pp.123, 124 J. Guiffrey, Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin, Paris, 1908, p.95, nos.251, 252 E. Pilon, Chardin, Les Maîtres de l’Art, Paris, 1909, p.170, H.Fust, Chardin, London, 1911, pp.95, 134 O.Granberg, Inventaire général des trésors d’art en Suède,Stockholm, 1911, (L’Etude du Dessin) vol.Ⅰ, p.110, no.489, pl.66 ; (La Bonne Education) vol.Ⅱ, pp.2-3, no.6,pl.9 P. Lespinasse, L’Art français et la Suède de 1688 à 1816, Bulletin de la Société de l’Art franais, Paris, 1912, pp.216, 220, nos.78, 79 G. Widenstein, Chardin, Paris 1933, nos.84, 227 E. Goldschmidt, jeam Baptiste Siméon Chardin, Stockholm, 1945, figs.23, 31 M. Florisoone, Chardin, Les trésors de la peinture française au ⅩⅤⅢ siècle, Geneva, 1948, p.57 G. and D. Widenstein, Chardin, Zurich, 1963 and (English ed.) London 1969, nos.222, 223, psl.36, 37 I. Hasselgren, Konstsamlaren Gustav Adolf Sparre 1746-1794. Hans studieresa vaning och konstsamling i Göteborg, 1974, pp.57, 124, psl. on p.165 (G6, G7) Philip Conisbee, Chardin, Phaidon, Oxford 1986, p.28 and 176 ; pl.17
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