The White Tablecloth
Jean Siméon Chardin (French, 1699–1779)
c. 1731–32
View the original$24
Type
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Materials & printing
Archival matte paper, 189 g/m² (10.3 mil), sourced from Japan, printed with multicolor water-based inkjet so every brushstroke stays crisp. Framed prints arrive ready to hang in a .75″ ayous-wood frame with an acrylite front. Sized to standard frames by cropping, never stretching — at most about 3% comes off one edge, which isn’t noticeable on most pieces, and we only offer a size when it stays that small.
Shipping & returns
Made to order and delivered in 5–8 business days (2–4 to print, 3–4 in transit). US shipping only for now. Because each print is made for your order, all sales are final — but if it arrives damaged or defective, send us a photo within 14 days and we’ll replace it free. Full policy.
Why is it this affordable?
A thin, flat margin on every piece — just enough to keep the store running. Most of what you pay is the print itself. We only sell sizes that reproduce at full quality, and we don’t mark up the large sizes the way most shops do.
About this work
Jean Siméon Chardin won acclaim for the still lifes and quiet scenes of middle-class domestic life that he exhibited at salons sponsored by the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In early still lifes like this one, he incorporated motifs common to 17th-century Dutch and Flemish works: the foreshortened knife, the handle of which protrudes over the table’s edge; the overturned glass; and the remains of a meal. The work’s unusual shape reveals its original function as a screen for the opening of a fireplace. Viewed at floor level, the screen would have conveyed the illusion of a table recessed into the fireplace.
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 96.8 × 123.5 cm (38 1/8 × 48 5/16 in.)
Museum record · 6 owners · 10 exhibitions
Provenance
- Probably Alexandre Gabriel Descamps, Paris; sold Hôtel des Ventes Mobilières, Paris 21 April 1853 as Nature morte for Fr 600.
- Sold Hôtel des Commissaires-Priseurs, Paris, 20-21 December 1858.
- Laurent Laperlier, Paris, by 1860, to at least 1865.
- Léon Michel-Lévy, Paris by 1907; sold, Galerie Georges Petit, 17-18 June 1925, to Wildenstein for Fr 202,000.
- David David-Weill, Paris by 1926.
- David-Weill collection on deposit at Wildenstein & Co., New York, by January 1938; acquired by the Art Institute from David-Weill through the agency of Wildenstein & Co., 19 November 1944.
Exhibitions
- Paris,, Boulevard des Italiens, Tableaux et dessins de l'école française principalement du XVIIIe siècle tirés de collections d’amateurs, 1860, as Le Cervelas.
- Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Exposition Chardin et Fragonard, 1907, as La Table servie.
- New York, Wildenstein, David-Weill Pictures,, no cat. New York, Wildenstein, (organized by the Institute of Modern Art, Boston), The Sources of Modern Painting: A Loan Exhibition Assembled from American Public and Private Collections, 1939.
- New York, Parke-Bernet, French and English Art Treasures of the XVIII Century, 1942.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Masterpiece of the Month, February 1949, no cat. New York, Wildenstein, Jubilee Loan Exhbition 1901-1951: Masterpieces from Museums and Private Collections, 1951.
- Minneapolis Institute of Arts, French Eighteenth-Century Painters, 1954, no, Royal Academy of Arts, Winter Exhibition, 1968.
- New York, Wildenstein, The Object as Subject: Still Life Paintings from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century, 1975.
- Art Institute of Chicago, Selected Works of Eighteenth-Century Frenchy Art in the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1976.
- The Art Institute of Chicago, A Case for Wine, July11—September 20, 2009, no exhibition catalogue.
- London, Tate Britain, Hogarth and Europe, Nov. 1, 2021-Mar. 20, 2022, no cat. no.
