Still Life with Game

Jean Siméon Chardin, probably 1750s

An orange and the bodies of a large fowl and two rabbits on a brown ledge nearly span the width of this square still life painting. The face of the ledge takes up the bottom quarter of the composition. Near the left edge of the canvas, the orange has a stem with dark green leaves. Next to it, near the center of the composition, the bird lies face up with its sapphire-blue head and neck draped down backward over the face of the ledge. The rest of its body is rust red, gray, and brown, and its tail feathers are angled up toward the top right corner of the canvas. The two rabbits have silver-grey fur tinged with muted golden yellow. They lie, one atop the other, to our right of the fowl. Their eyes are closed, and a drop of dark red blood drips from the mouth of the rabbit underneath. The ledge is caramel brown, and the wall behind is mottled with ginger brown and putty grey. The artist signed the lower left, “chardin.”
Artist
Jean Siméon Chardin
Date
probably 1750s
Type
Painting
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
49.6 × 59.4 cm
Collection
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Licence
Public domain, CC0

Image description

An orange and the bodies of a large fowl and two rabbits on a brown ledge nearly span the width of this square still life painting. The face of the ledge takes up the bottom quarter of the composition. Near the left edge of the canvas, the orange has a stem with dark green leaves. Next to it, near the center of the composition, the bird lies face up with its sapphire-blue head and neck draped down backward over the face of the ledge. The rest of its body is rust red, gray, and brown, and its tail feathers are angled up toward the top right corner of the canvas. The two rabbits have silver-grey fur tinged with muted golden yellow. They lie, one atop the other, to our right of the fowl. Their eyes are closed, and a drop of dark red blood drips from the mouth of the rabbit underneath. The ledge is caramel brown, and the wall behind is mottled with ginger brown and putty grey. The artist signed the lower left, “chardin.”

Jean Siméon Chardin