Jean-Siméon Chardin: where to see him across these museums

The son of a Paris cabinetmaker, Chardin trained outside the traditional history-painting track and was admitted to the Académie Royale in 1728 specifically as a painter "of animals and fruits" — a lower-ranked category he transformed into an art of its own, building quiet compositions from copper pots, dead game and loaves of bread.

His genre scenes of servants and children caught the attention of Louis XV, who received two of his paintings in 1740 and later granted him a pension and lodging in the Louvre itself. Chardin also spent decades as a working administrator of the Academy — attending meetings for fifty years and serving as its treasurer — a level of institutional service unusual for a painter of his stature. He died in Paris in 1779.

Chardin paintings on display, museum by museum

Rooms and display status checked against each museum’s own collection database.

Listen to the commentary in the gallery

This list tells you where to look. In front of the actual painting, CulturAll adds the audio commentary: photograph the work or its label, listen, then ask your questions.