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Jean-Siméon Chardin
French, 1699-1779
Self-Portrait with a Visor, c. 1776
Pastel on blue laid paper, mounted on canvas
457 x 374 mm
Clarence Buckingham Collection and the Harold Joachim Memorial Fund, 1984.61
Over a century after its creation, the French novelist Marcel Proust said of Jean Siméon Chardin's audacious self-portrait, "This old oddity is so intelligent, so crazy ... above all, so much of an artist." In a fitting finale to a long, successful career as a painter of still lifes and genre scenes, Chardin turned in his last decade to a new medium, pastel, and to a new subject matter, portraits (primarily self-portraits). Eye problems arising from lead-based oil paint poisoning were the partial cause of this dramatic change. Of the thirteen pastel self-portaits by Chardin known today, the most famous are versions of the example seen here, with the casually dressed, aging artist in his studio. A virtuoso colorist, the septuagenarian here revealed a joyously free stroke and palette. Nonetheless, the construction of the figure is solid and rigorous, adding to Chardin's powerful presence. This composition was created at the same time as a portrait of the artist's wife for the 1775 Salon (Musée du Louvre, Paris). A year later, Chardin—with greater daring—replicated the pair. These later portraits were separated for almost two hundred years, until they were reunited in the collection of the Art Institute.
— Entry, Essential Guide, 2013, p. 312.
Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories
Exhibition History
The Art Institute of Chicago, "Great Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago: The Harold Joachim Years 1958-1983," July 24-September 30, 1985, pp. 86-87, cat. 34 (ill.), cat. by Martha Tedeschi.
The Art Institute of Chicago, May 1, 1988-May 31, 1990 (installation).
New York, The Frick Collection, "From Pontormo to Seurat: Drawings Recently Acquired by The Art Institute of Chicago," April 23-July 7, 1991, n.p., cat. 26 (ill.); traveled to The Art Institute of Chicago, September 10, 1991-January 5, 1992.
Publication History
Lady E. F. S. Dilke, "Chardin et ses Oeuvres à Potsdam et à Stockholm," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 22 (1899), p. 394.
Georges Wildenstein, Chardin (Paris, 1933), no. 652.
Daniel Wildenstein, Chardin (Paris, 1963), p. 238.
Pierre Rosenberg, Chardin: New Thoughts (Lawrence, Kansas, 1983), pp. 34, and 36-37.
Pierre Rosenberg, Tout l'Oeuvre Peint de Chardin (Paris, 1983), no. 194A (ill.)
The Art Institute of Chicago Annual Report (1983-84), p. 19, no. 50 (ill.).
Suzanne McCullagh and Pierre Rosenberg, "The Supreme Triumph of the Old Painter: Chardin's Final Work in Pastel," The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, 12 (1985), pp. 43-59 (ill.).
James N. Wood and Sally Ruth May, The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide (Chicago, 1993), p. 210 (ill.).
Pierre Rosenberg, Chardin (Paris, 1999), no. 197A (ill.).
Treasures from The Art Institute of Chicago, selected by James N. Wood, with commentaries by Debra N. Mancoff (Chicago, 2000), p. 135 (ill.).
The Essential Guide (Chicago, 2009), p. 298 (ill.).
Ownership History
Possibly the estate of the artist; possibly by descent to the artist's wife; possibly the estate of the artist's wife; possibly, Juste Chardin (the artist's brother), to August 12, 1794 [his estate inventory]. Camille Groult (1837-1908), Paris, by 1899 [Dilke 1899]; by descent to his son, Jean Groult (1868-1951); sold, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, March 21, 1952, Groult sale, lot 64. Sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 8, 1983, lot 29. Sold by E. V. Thaw, New York, to the Art Institute, 1984.
