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The Washerwoman

The Washerwoman

Artist: Jean-Siméon Chardin (French, 1699-1779)
Date: about 1733-1739
Dimensions:
15 3/4 x 12 1/2 in. (40 x 31.8 cm)
Medium: oil on canvas
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott
Object number: 2006.3
Label Text:Painted as a pair, The Washerwoman and The Woman Drawing Water at the Cistern (nearby) depict servants engaged in humble, domestic activities. In The Washerwoman the title figure scrubs laundry in a large wooden wash bucket. Chardin paints her gazing away from her work, as if something has distracted her attention—or more likely, as if she is captured in a moment of idle musing. The other composition features a woman, her face hidden, stooping to fill a jug of water from a large copper urn. A glistening side of meat hangs above her. A second servant and a child are visible through a doorway. Both compositions, with their focus on domestic interiors and the effects of light on a variety of surfaces, owe much to 17th-century Dutch paintings.

The skillfully contrived “simplicity” of Chardin’s quiet images, along with his mastery of rendering the appearance of things—fabric, ceramic, glass, copper, meat, skin, stone, and liquid—provoke the desire to linger in the presence of his paintings.

On view
In Collection(s)