Art: Sonneteer of a World at Rest

Jean-Siméon Chardin: a bicentennial retrospective

By general consent, Jean-Siméon Chardin was one of the supreme artists of the 18th century, and probably the greatest master of still life in the history of painting. Yet there has not been, until now, a full-dress retrospective of his work. To mark the 200th anniversary of his death, at the age of 80 in 1779, a huge Chardin show opened in January at the Grand Palais in his native Paris, with 142 paintings, drawings and pastels, and a catalogue by one of Europe's most distinguished art historians,...

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