The Water Cistern

Chardin translated scenes from everyday life into images that exhilarated the art-going public and transformed French painting. This composition, depicting a woman drawing water from a copper cistern in the service wing of a grand Parisian townhouse, was one of Chardin’s first such experiments. The bright illumination of a second room, seen through a doorway, is a trope from Dutch painting that helps convey the sense that he captures a slice of life caught unawares. This painting is exceptionally well preserved, allowing us to appreciate Chardin’s singular paint handling. Dragged roughly over the canvas, it miraculously produces the illusion of people and things so convincingly that Chardin became a touchstone for nineteenth-century Realist painters.