JEAN-SIMEON CHARDIN
66 Study for a Seated Man
r
Study of a Male Nude
v
Char coal and white chalk; H: 25.6 cm (lo^1 /^ in.); W: 16.7
cm (6^9 /i6 in.)
85.06.224
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: None.
PROVENANCE: Private collection, Paris; art market,
Paris.
EXHIBITIONS: None.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: None.THE ATTRIBUTION OF THIS RARE EXAMPLE OF THE
draughtsmanship of Chardin is due to P. Rosenberg.^1
The figure on the recto is a study for the man seated at
the extreme right in the artist's early painting The Game
of Billiards (Paris, Musee Carnavalet).^2 In its use of char-
coal and white chalk and its graphic style, the recto is
closest to the drawing La Vinaigrette (Stockholm, Na-
tionalmuseum, inv. 2960/1863).^3 In both, forms have
been built up in a series of rapid and somewhat heavy
black lines, heightened with additional thick white chalk
strokes. The Museum's drawing is impressive in its di-
rectness of observation and characterization.
The verso consists of a fragmentary study of a male
nude, a typical academic of the period. A very similar
study, also greatly reduced, is on the verso of La Vinai-
grette.^4 As Rosenberg has argued, the Stockholm nude
study is compatible technically with its verso and reflects
the artist's training under Pierre-Jacques Gazes.^5 The
same may be said about the verso of the Museum's sheet,
which is surely also by Chardin. It is interesting that both
of these academic nude studies are fragments on the ver-
sos of presumably later drawings. The artist very likely
kept a group of such studies from his younger days and
reused the paper when the occasion demanded, cutting
it down to the appropriate size. The Game of Billiards is
dated to 1720-1725, to which period the recto of the Mu-
seum's drawing also belongs, whereas the verso is prob-
ably somewhat earlier. Another drawing for this paint-
ing is 6 in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv. 29627
i86 3 ).
versoi. His opinion was given to the former owner and will be pub-
lished shortly. Rosenberg's views on Char din's drawings are
carefully elaborated in "The Issue of Chardin as a Draftsman,"
in Chardin: New Thoughts, The Franklin D. Murphy Lectures
1. Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art (Lawrence, 1983),
pp. 69-74.- P. Rosenberg, Chardin, 1699-1779, exh. cat., Grand Palais,
Paris, 1979, no. 3. - Ibid., no. i.
- Ibid., no. i verso.
- Ibid., p. 103, no. i.
- Ibid., no. 2.
JEAN-SIMEON CHARDIN (French, 1699-1779). The Game of Bil-
liards (detail). Oil on canvas. H: 55 cm (215/8 in.); W: 82.5 c
(32^1 / in.). Paris, Musee Carnavalet. Photo courtesy Cliche
Musees de la Ville de Paris—SPADEM, 1987.m152 FRENCH SCHOOL • CHARDIN