''Saying Grace'' or ''The Prayer Before a Meal'' (french: Le Bénédicité) is the title of several paintings by French artist
Jean Simeon Chardin
Jean may refer to:
People
* Jean (female given name)
* Jean (male given name)
* Jean (surname)
Fictional characters
* Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character
* Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations
* J ...
, one of which was given as a gift to
Louis XV
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...
. The subject of the painting, a middle-class French family saying
grace
Grace may refer to:
Places United States
* Grace, Idaho, a city
* Grace (CTA station), Chicago Transit Authority's Howard Line, Illinois
* Little Goose Creek (Kentucky), location of Grace post office
* Grace, Carroll County, Missouri, an uninco ...
before a meal, is one of everyday bourgeois tranquillity – Chardin's area of interest – with an uncharacteristic touch of sentimentality.
History
Chardin, who had made his fame painting
still life
A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...
, had at this point in his career started also to include human figures in his works. He painted several versions of ''Le Bénédicité'', three of which were exhibited at the
Salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments
* French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home
* Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment
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* Salon (P ...
, in 1740, 1746 and 1761.
[Rand and Bianco, p. 128.] The original, from 1740, was given as a gift to the King. The painting fell into oblivion ten years after the death of Louis XV, but was rediscovered in 1845.
Another version was kept by the artist throughout his life, and eventually ended up in the
Musée du Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
, through the large bequest of
Louis La Caze
Louis La Caze (6 May 1798 – 28 September 1869) was a successful French physician and collector of paintings whose bequest of 583 paintings to the Musée du Louvre was one of the largest the museum has ever received. Among the paintings, the most ...
in 1869.
The version from the 1761 Salon – a horizontal composition – is now lost.
The painting
Chardin is well known for his depictions of humble, everyday life.
[Gombrich, p. 470] ''Le Bénédicité'' shows a modest, middle-class interior scene, where a mother is laying the table for a meal. She instructs her children to say their
grace
Grace may refer to:
Places United States
* Grace, Idaho, a city
* Grace (CTA station), Chicago Transit Authority's Howard Line, Illinois
* Little Goose Creek (Kentucky), location of Grace post office
* Grace, Carroll County, Missouri, an uninco ...
before eating. The younger of the children can easily appear a girl to the modern eye, if the drum hanging on the child-sized ladderback chair is overlooked, and is indeed identified as such in Gardner. Rand and Bianco, however, quote the inscription on a contemporary engraving, describing the child as a boy, who has not yet been
breeched. The quiet, peaceful atmosphere is reinforced by the subdued colour scheme, and the muted lighting.
[Gardner, p. 640.] Chardin put much work into the arrangement of the various elements of his paintings. The composition here is meticulous, and the stability created by the triangular structure of the three figures also adds to the tranquillity of the scene.
Variants
The
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
holds a variant exhibited at the 1740
Paris Salon
The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...
. There are other variants in the
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The name of the museum is derived from the two most important collectors of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. It is located at ...
in Rotterdam (with a small boy added on the left) and the
Nationalmuseum
Nationalmuseum (or National Museum of Fine Arts) is the national gallery of Sweden, located on the peninsula Blasieholmen in central Stockholm.
The museum's operations stretches far beyond the borders of Blasieholmen, the nationalmuseum manag ...
in Stockholm.
Hermitage version
A version in the
Hermitage Museum
The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the list of ...
dated 1744 was for many years thought to be the only signed and dated version of this painting. It is signed in the bottom left hand corner. Chardin was presented to
Louis XV
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...
at the
Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 19 ...
on 27 November 1740 by
Philibert Orry, the king's superintendent of buildings and controller general of finances – Chardin's only meeting with the monarch. This was one of two paintings the artist presented to Louis on that occasion; the ''
Mercure de France
The was originally a French gazette and literary magazine first published in the 17th century, but after several incarnations has evolved as a publisher, and is now part of the Éditions Gallimard publishing group.
The gazette was published f ...
'' reported that the king "received
he paintingsvery favourably; these two little works are already well known, having been exhibited at the Salon in the Louvre last August. We mentioned them in the October ''Mercure'', under the title ''The Laborious Mother'' and ''Saying Grace''." The work entered the Hermitage Museum between 1763 and 1774 under
Catherine II of Russia
, en, Catherine Alexeievna Romanova, link=yes
, house =
, father = Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst
, mother = Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp
, birth_date =
, birth_name = Princess Sophie of Anhal ...
.
Wemyss version
In 2014, a version of the painting in the collection of
Lady Wemyss was attributed to the school of Chardin and sold for £1.15M. A subsequent examination revealed Chardin's signature, leading to its reattribution to Chardin. It was resold for $10.5m (£8.5m) in January 2015.
Reception
Chardin is often contrasted to
Watteau
Jean-Antoine Watteau (, , ; baptised October 10, 1684died July 18, 1721) Alsavailablevia Oxford Art Online (subscription needed). was a French painter and draughtsman whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement, as ...
, whose paintings of aristocratic life differ greatly from those of Chardin's common people.
It is not known for certain whether ''Le Bénédicité'' was painted with Louis XV in mind, or if it was the king who personally picked the painting out from the 1740 exhibition.
In either case, the purchase shows the appeal the painting had to its contemporaries. When it was rediscovered in 1845 – on the eve of the
revolutions of 1848
The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europea ...
– it had taken on a whole new meaning. To the
bourgeois
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
establishment, the works of Chardin now represented a salutary contrast to the 'decadent aristocratic flimsy' of Watteau.
In 1848, an anonymous reviewer in the journal ''Magasin Pittoresque'' wrote:
References
Sources
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Bibliography
*
*
*, no. 78
External links
Informationabout the painting at the
Musée du Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
web site.
Informationabout the painting on "
Le monde des arts'".
{{Louvre Museum
1740s paintings
Paintings by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
Paintings in the Louvre by French artists
Paintings in the collection of the Hermitage Museum
Paintings in the collection of the Nationalmuseum Stockholm
Paintings in the collection of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Paintings of children
Food and drink paintings