THE rebuke 'Your eyes were bigger than your stomach' will have been shamingly obvious to all of us at some point. I recently experienced it more or less in reverse. My eyes initially reacted to Le panier des fraises des bois by Jean Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) with distaste, which I then realised was triggered by my stomach–I can no longer eat strawberries, even wild ones, as they are a gout trigger. When I looked at the 15in by 19in still life properly, my aesthetic assessment was quite different.
Unlike many Dutch 17thcentury still lifes (still even, silent lives), 18th-century French natures mortes of this kind do not tell stories or point to morals, the intention is to provoke an emotional response to beauty and harmony. In this one, exhibited in 1761, the pyramid of fruit, however beautifully painted, would probably not do the job without the accompanying glass, carnations, cherries, and peach, which make the composition a triangle within a pentagon, to greater harmonious effect. As it is, this simple-seeming painting could happily be contemplated for hours, even by the gouty.
Last November, Christie's Paris took a record €7.11 million for a Chardin genre painting of a maid filling a bucket from a water cistern; that record was comprehensively trashed by the €24,381,000 (820.6 million) made by Le panier des fraises des a bois with Artcurial and the Turquin dealership on March 24. It came from the descendants of François Marcille (1790–1856), who had built up a massive collection of 18th-century paintings, including 40 Bouchers, 30 Chardin's, and 25 Fragonards, many bought in flea markets as 18thcentury art was still deeply unfashionable after the Revolution. It would be fascinating to know what he paid for this one.
This story is from the April 20, 2022 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the April 20, 2022 edition of Country Life UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Too divine
Four actresses earn the plaudits this month, for parts ranging from Sarah Siddons to Charlotte Bronté
Stashed away
The vast collection of the late George Withers, encompassing everything from Prattware pot lids to barometers, doubles up as a guide to the mid-market collecting fancies of the past 60 years
Parsley of Macedon
Not quite a native, alexanders can taste like joss stick-tainted celery or sweetly spiced parsnips, depending on your method, warns John Wright
A hungry heart
A man who strove, sought and found, Wassily Kandinsky pioneered not one, but two artistic movements against the tumultuous backdrop of early-20thcentury Europe, as Holly Black relates
Royal favours
AFTER much speculation as to what might be the favourite flower Her of Elizabeth II, the truth was revealed at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2019.
Smart thinking
A private family garden near Godalming in Surrey How does a garden design begin? With a lot of questions and by finding a central theme says James Alexander-Sinclair
Escape to the hills
These four houses in the county of Surrey can offer the best of both worlds: rural settings and easy access to London
A little help from your friends
Driven to distraction by paint charts? A colour consultant could be the answer for anyone befuddled by choosing the right hue
A (crab) apple a day
They may be too tart to eat, but crab apples can be made into all sorts of good things, from jellies to salves, and may even have been Adam and Eve's forbidden fruit, says Ian Morton
The sound of centuries past
The past 50 years have seen an energetic revival of the instruments that would have been played in Bach's day. Henrietta Bredin meets players fascinated by the noises Baroque composers would have heard