Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

The Metropolitan Museum of Art



  • Soap Bubbles, ca. 1734
    Jean Siméon Chardin (French, 1699–1779)
    Oil on canvas

    24 x 24 7/8 in. (61 x 63.2 cm)
    Wentworth Fund, 1949 (49.24)

    The idle play of children was a favorite theme of Chardin's. In this painting of about 1734, he drew inspiration from the seventeenth-century Dutch genre tradition, for both format and subject. While it is not certain that he intended the picture to carry a message, soap bubbles usually allude to the transience of life. Chardin painted two other versions of this picture (Los Angeles County Museum of Art; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.).

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  • Soap Bubbles, ca. 1734
    Jean Siméon Chardin (French, 1699–1779)
    Oil on canvas

    24 x 24 7/8 in. (61 x 63.2 cm)
    Wentworth Fund, 1949 (49.24)