Signed (left, on stone): ·J·chardin
The idle play of children was a favorite theme of Chardin who was a great naturalist among painters. In this canvas of about 1734 he drew inspiration from the seventeenth-century Dutch genre tradition, for both the format and the subject. While it is not certain that he intended the picture to carry a message, soap bubbles were then understood to allude to the transience of life. Other versions of this picture belong to the Los Angeles County Museum adn the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Versions and Date:
It is generally agreed that there were four autograph versions of "Soap Bubbles"; three survive—two horizontal versions at the MMA and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and an upright version at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The first version is presumably the one now lost, as technical analysis [see Ref. Conisbee 1991] has shown that none of the surviving pictures contain any significant pentimenti. It seems that it was this first, lost work that was exhibited at the 1739 Salon and engraved by Pierre Filloeul that year. The print is after an upright version which differs significantly from the Washington picture.
According to Mariette, Chardin's first figure painting represented a boy blowing bubbles. This would suggest a date of 1733–34 for the composition. The design and handling of the paint in all three extant versions are consistent with this date, which is confirmed by the appearance of the same young man in the "Lady Sealing a Letter" in Berlin, signed and dated 1733. The three extant versions were probably executed within a short period; the thick brushwork of the MMA picture suggests it is the earliest of the surviving works. Chardin apparently waited six years before exhibiting the first version at the Salon, a practice that was not unusual for him.
Two or three copies after Chardin's "Soap Bubbles" are known: "an old, retouched copy" [see Ref. Rosenberg 1979] in the Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas; "a good copy . . . faithful to Filloeul's engraving," [see Ref. Rosenberg 1983] now in a private collection in Paris; and possibly a third copy which appeared on the French art market in 1981 (Rosenberg, "Chardin, new thoughts," Lawrence, Kansas, 1983).
Pendants:
"Knucklebones," vertical in format and now in the Baltimore Museum of Art, was also engraved by Filloeul in 1739 and, with "Soap Bubbles," was presented as a pair of upright prints in an advertisement in the "Mercure" in 1739. The two subjects as uprights also appeared as pendants at the Boscy (1781) and Gruel (1811) sales. The MMA's "Soap Bubbles" was paired with two different versions of the "House of Cards," one at the Trouard Sale (1779), which is now lost, and another at the Jacques Doucet sale (1912), now in the Oskar Reinhart collection, Winterthur, which is a later copy. "The School Mistress" and "Soap Bubbles" appeared as pendants in four eighteenth-century sales. M. Dulac, the buyer of the Trouard pendants, appears to have paired the Metropolitan's "Soap Bubbles" with "The School Mistress," which sold as a pair in his sale in 1801 to an unknown buyer. Wildenstein [see Ref. 1969] associates "The School Mistress" in the National Gallery, London, with the Dulac pendant.
Louis-François Trouard, Paris (until 1779; M*** [his] sale, Paris, February 22, 1779, no. 44, "Deux tableaux pendans; ils représentent chacun un jeune garçon vu à mi-corps; l'un s'amuse à faire des boules de savon, & l'autre un château de cartes. Largeur 24 pouces, hauteur 23 pouces. Sur toile." for Fr 95 to Dulac); ?Antoine Charles Dulac, Paris (1779–1801; his sale, Paillet and Delaroche, Paris, April 6, 1801, no. 19, as "Deux Tableaux d'un vrai par la beauté du coloris et leur grande vérité; l'un représente un écolier qui fait des bules de savon; l'autre, une jeune fille qui fait lire enfant."); Jacques Doucet, Paris (by 1899–1912; his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, June 6, 1912, no. 136, as "Les Bouteilles de savon," for Fr 300,500 [with no. 135, "Le Faiseur de châteaux de cartes," for Fr 190,000]); David David-Weill, Paris (1912–at least 1933; cat., 1926, I, pp. 25–26, ill.); Fritz Mannheimer, Amsterdam (until d. 1939); his widow, Jane Mannheimer, Amsterdam, and later New York (1939–49; held in Paris for Mrs. Mannheimer at Chenue; seized by the Nazis and "bought" May 12, 1944 through Posse and Mühlmann for Fr 800,000 for the Führer Museum, Linz; held at Alt Aussee [1387] and at Munich collecting point [1588]; returned to France, January 30, 1946, by the Service Français de la Récupération and restituted following agreement with SNK [Netherlands Art Property Foundation] in or after 1948; sold to Wildenstein); [Wildenstein, New York, 1949; sold to MMA]
Paris. Musée de l'Orangerie. "Chefs d'oeuvres des collections françaises retrouvés en Allemagne par la Commission de Récupération artistique," June–August 1946, no. 10.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Diamond Jubilee Exhibition: Masterpieces of Painting," November 4, 1950–February 11, 1951, no. 47.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Art Treasures of the Metropolitan," November 7, 1952–September 7, 1953, no. 130.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Masterpieces of Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 16–November 1, 1970, unnumbered cat.
Leningrad [St. Petersburg]. State Hermitage Museum. "100 Paintings from the Metropolitan Museum," May 22–July 27, 1975, no. 51.
Moscow. State Pushkin Museum. "100 Paintings from the Metropolitan Museum," August 28–November 2, 1975, no. 51.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Chardin: 1699–1779," September 18–November 19, 1979, no. 61.
Cleveland Museum of Art. "Chardin: 1699–1779," May 30–August 12, 1979, no. 61.
Paris. Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais. "Chardin: 1699–1779," January 29–April 30, 1979, no. 61.
Atlanta. High Museum of Art. "The Rococo Age: French Masterpieces of the Eighteenth Century," October 5–December 31, 1983, no. 47.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Masterpiece in Focus: Soap Bubbles by Jean-Siméon Chardin," October 18, 1990–January 20, 1991.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpiece in Focus: Soap Bubbles by Jean-Siméon Chardin," February 19–June 6, 1991.
Washington. National Gallery of Art. "Soap Bubbles of Jean-Siméon Chardin," June 30–September 2, 1991.
Athens. National Gallery Alexandros Soutzos Museum. "From El Greco to Cézanne: Masterpieces of European Painting from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York," December 13, 1992–April 11, 1993, no. 30.
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Lady [Emilia Francis Strong] Dilke. "Chardin et ses oeuvres à Potsdam et à Stockholm (premiér article)." Gazette des beaux-arts 22 (1899), pp. 181–82, ill. opp. p. 180 (engraving of our version by Henri Lefort).
Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt. L'art du dix-huitième siècle. definitive ed. Paris, 1906, vol. 1, p. 157.
Armand Dayot and Jean Guiffrey. J.-B Siméon Chardin avec un catalogue complet de l'oeuvre du maître. Paris, 1907, pp. 44, 46, 75, 90, no. 113, and no. 122, ill.
Armand Dayot and Léandre Vaillat. L'oeuvre de J.-B.-S. Chardin et de J.-H. Fragonard. Paris, [1908], p. iv.
Herbert E. A. Furst. Chardin. London, 1911, p. 124.
[Émile Dacier]. "La collection Jacques Doucet." Revue de l'art ancien et moderne 31 (1912), p. 337, ill. p. 323.
Collection Jacques Doucet, deuxième partie: Catalogue des sculptures & tableaux du XVIIIe siècle. Galerie Georges Petit, Paris. June 6, 1912, p. 37, no. 136, ill.
Gabriel Henriot. "Peintures." Collection David Weill. 1, Paris, 1926, pp. 25–27, ill.
Paul Jamot. "French Painting—I." Burlington Magazine 59 (December 1931), ill. p. 309.
Georges Wildenstein. Chardin. Paris, 1933, pp. 167–68, no. 135, fig. 20.
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"Chardin and Steiglitz Collection Go to Met." Art Digest 23 (July 1, 1949), p. 11, ill.
Francis Jourdain. Chardin, 1699–1779. Paris, 1949, fig. 30.
Theodore Rousseau Jr. "A Boy Blowing Bubbles by Chardin." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 8 (April 1950), pp. 221–27, ill. p. 222 and on cover (color detail).
Fritz Neugass. "Chardin: 'Der Junge mit der Seifenblase' (Ausschnitt)." Weltkunst 21 (March 15, 1951), p. 2, ill. (cover).
Art Treasures of the Metropolitan: A Selection from the European and Asiatic Collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1952, p. 231, no. 130, colorpl. 130.
Theodore Rousseau Jr. "A Guide to the Picture Galleries." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 12, part 2 (January 1954), pp. 5, 39, ill.
Charles Sterling. "XV–XVIII Centuries." The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of French Paintings. 1, Cambridge, Mass., 1955, pp. 126–27, ill.
A. Hyatt Mayor. "The Gifts that Made the Museum." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 16 (November 1957), p. 86.
Colin Eisler. "A Chardin in the Grand Manner." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 18 (February 1960), p. 207, ill. p. 206.
Georges Wildenstein. Chardin. revised and enlarged ed. Greenwich, Conn., 1969, pp. 158, 190, no. 75, fig. 35.
David Carritt. Letter to John Walsh. September 9, 1974.
George Mauner. Manet, Peintre-Philosophe: A Study of the Painter's Themes. University Park, Pa., 1975, pp. 134–35, fig. 78.
Ronald Paulson. Emblem and Expression: Meaning in English Art of the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge, Mass., 1975, p. 106, ill.
Pierre Rosenberg. Chardin: 1699–1779. Exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, 1979, pp. 76–77, 205–6, 208–10, no. 61, ill.
Albert Boime. Thomas Couture and the Eclectic Vision. New Haven, 1980, pp. 337–38, ill.
Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, pp. 361, 367, fig. 665 (color).
Norman Bryson. Word and Image: French Painting of the Ancien Régime. Cambridge, 1981, pp. 112–14, ill.
Jean-Luc Bordeaux in The Rococo Age: French Masterpieces of the Eighteenth Century. Exh. cat., High Museum of Art. Atlanta, 1983, p. 15.
Pierre Rosenberg. L'opera completa di Chardin. Milan, 1983, pp. 91–92, no. 97, ill. p. 91 and colorpl. 17.
Eric M. Zafran. The Rococo Age: French Masterpieces of the Eighteenth Century. Exh. cat., High Museum of Art. Atlanta, 1983, pp. 102, 113–14, no. 47, ill. (color).
Joseph Baillio. "French Rococo Painting: A Notable Exhibition in Atlanta." Apollo 119 (January 1984), p. 17.
Philip Conisbee in Masterpiece in Focus: Soap Bubbles by Jean-Siméon Chardin. Exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles, 1990, pp. 5–22, figs. 2, 27 (color).
Joseph Fronek in Masterpiece in Focus: Soap Bubbles by Jean-Siméon Chardin. Exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles, 1990, pp. 23–25.
Philip Conisbee in The Ahmanson Gifts: European Masterpieces in the Collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles, 1991, pp. 60–61, fig. 13a.
René Démoris. Chardin, la chair et l'objet. Paris, 1991, pp. 70, 84–87, 99–101, 153, fig. 11.
Michael Kimmelman. "Sharp Focus on an Unwavering Gaze." New York Times (March 17, 1991), p. H 35.
Marcia Kupfer. Soap Bubbles of Jean-Siméon Chardin. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1991, unpaginated brochure, figs. 1 (color), 9 (x-ray).
Deborah Krohn et al. in From El Greco to Cézanne: Masterpieces of European Painting from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Exh. cat., National Gallery Alexandros Soutzos Museum. Athens, 1992, pp. 16, 308, no. 30, ill. (color) [catalogue section unpaginated].
Marianne Roland Michel. Chardin. New York, 1996, pp. 66, 193, 233 nn. 14–15.
Frédéric Ogée. "Chardin's Time: Reflections on the Tercentenary Exhibition and Twenty Years of Scholarship." Eighteenth-Century Studies 33 (Spring 2000), p. 435.
Pierre Rosenberg. Chardin. Exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts. London, 2000, pp. 174, 190, 208–10, no. 42, ill. (color).
James D. Herbert. "A Picture of Chardin's Making." Eighteenth-Century Studies 34 (Winter 2001), pp. 252–74.
Philip Conisbee in The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting. Exh. cat.New Haven, 2003, p. 184.
Joseph Baillio et al. The Arts of France from François Ier to Napoléon Ier. Exh. cat., Wildenstein & Co., Inc. New York, [2005], pp. 54, 72, no. 30, ill.
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