Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
The Game of Knucklebones
1733
Scroll
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
The Game of Knucklebones
1733
Physical Qualities
Oil on canvas, 32 1/4 x 25 13/16 in. (81.9 x 65.6 cm.)
Credit Line
The Mary Frick Jacobs Collection
Object Number
1938.193
A young girl, wearing a blue bibbed apron watches the ball she has just tossed into the air and readies her other hand to pick up the four knucklebones–the small bones from the heel of a sheep–lying on the tabletop. The eighteenth-century viewer would see the pair of scissors propped conspicuously at the edge of the table as a thinly veiled sign of disapproval: this girl should be attending to her sewing rather than wasting her time playing knucklebones.
An inscription, which accompanied a print of the painting made shortly after its completion, speaks to the age of adolescence so tenderly expressed in this image:
Already grown and full of charm
It ill becomes you, dear Lisette.
To play alone at knucklebones,
From now henceforth you are made
To make a young admirer happy
By deigning to grant him some part
In your games.
Although he lived in the Rococo era with its emphasis on lighthearted elegance and pleasure, Chardin chose to represent simple interior scenes and still lifes in a manner reminiscent of Dutch painting of the previous century. Such commonplace subject as this drawn from contemporary life, were admired by the realist Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet, and the Impressionists.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest, 1938; from Mary Frick Jacobs, Baltimore; purchased from Rene Gimpel, Paris, 1923; Mr. Charley, Paris; purchased from Cronier, Paris (4-5 December), 1905, no. 2; Sold by Gruel, Paris, 16-18 April 1811, no. 5 (with companion piece); Sold from the collection of the architect Boscry, Paris, 19 March 1781, no. 17 (with companion piece).
Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 'Chardin-Fragonard Exposition,' 1907, no. 5.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, 'Man and His Years,' 19 October-21 November 1954, cat. no. 83.
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 'Tercentenary Exhibition,' 22 March-28 April 1963, cat. no. 69, ill. p. 97.
Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Columbus (Ohio), 'Chardin,' 20 April-9 May, 1965.
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 'France in the 18th Century,' 5 Jan.-3 Mar. 1967, cat. no. 136, ill. pl. LXVIII, fig. 195.
Réunion des musées nationaux, Palais du Louvre, Paris, 'Chardin 1699-1779,' 27 Jan.-30 Apr. 1979. Circulated to The Cleveland Museum of Art and The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through Nov. 1979.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (P. Conisbee), 'Masterpiece in Focus: Soap Bubbles by Jean-Simeon Chardin, October 18, 1990-January 20, 1991, ill. 17, circulated to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 19 Feb.-16 June, 1991; The National Gallery of Art (with additional loans, inc. print from BMA), 30 June-2 Sept., 1991.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, 'Man and His Years,' 19 October-21 November 1954, cat. no. 83.
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 'Tercentenary Exhibition,' 22 March-28 April 1963, cat. no. 69, ill. p. 97.
Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, Columbus (Ohio), 'Chardin,' 20 April-9 May, 1965.
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 'France in the 18th Century,' 5 Jan.-3 Mar. 1967, cat. no. 136, ill. pl. LXVIII, fig. 195.
Réunion des musées nationaux, Palais du Louvre, Paris, 'Chardin 1699-1779,' 27 Jan.-30 Apr. 1979. Circulated to The Cleveland Museum of Art and The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through Nov. 1979.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (P. Conisbee), 'Masterpiece in Focus: Soap Bubbles by Jean-Simeon Chardin, October 18, 1990-January 20, 1991, ill. 17, circulated to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 19 Feb.-16 June, 1991; The National Gallery of Art (with additional loans, inc. print from BMA), 30 June-2 Sept., 1991.
A. Alexandre, "The Collection of E. Cronier," Les Arts, November 1905, 47:4, 6, 8, 10 pl. p. 11.
E. Bocher, "Prints and Engravings of the 18th Century," Part III, no. 39, bis p. 41.
A. Dayot & L. Vaillat, "The Works of J.B.S. Chardin and J.H. Fragonard," Paris, 1907, pl. 43.
J. Guiffrey, "Catalogue raisonne de l'oeuvre...de J.B.S. Chardin," Paris: 1908, no. 105.
H. Furst, "Chardin," London and New York: 1911, p. 123.
Georges Wildenstein, "Chardin," 1933, no. 176.
"The Collection of Mary Frick Jacobs," Baltimore: Dr. Henry Barton Jacobs, 1938, ill. pl. 14.
Bernard Denvir, "Chardin," New York: Harper, 1950, ill. pl. 21.
E. S. Hirsh, "A Painting by Chardin in the Jacobs Collection," BMA News, February 1951, pp. 1-4, ill. inside cover. (copy enclosed)
"A Picture Book," Baltimore: The Baltimore Museum of Art, 1955, ill. p. 31.
B. Perlman, "The BMA: 25 Years of Growth," Art Digest, Vol. 29, No. 16, May 15, 1955, p. 19, ill. p. 15.
"Object of the Week," Baltimore Sun, Sunday, 24 June 1956, ill. rotogravure section.
E. Pogon & Y. Bruand, "Inventory of French Works, Engravers of the 18th century," Paris: Bibliotheque National, 1962, p. 192.
Georges Wildenstein, "Chardin," Zurich: Manesse, 1963, cat. no. 164, p. 169, ill. pl. 21.
Rene Huyghe, "Chardin," Jardin de Arts, April 1965, no. 125, p. 113, ill. (Ridder) Pl. XXXIX.
Rene Gimpel, "Diary of an Art Dealer," New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966, p. 307.
Pierre Rosenberg, "The French 18th century at the Royal Academy," Revue de l'Art, 1969, 3:99.
E. Shope-Reitsma, "Chardin and the Bourgeois Ideals of His Time," Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, 1973, 24:218.
Pierre Rosenberg, "Chardin 1699-1779," Bloomington: The Cleveland Museum of Art in association with the Indiana University Press, 1979, ill. p. 207, pl. 60.
Francis Frascina, "Chardin-Unit 30," England: Open University Press (BBC) 1980, (companion text to educational television program), ill. p. 56, fig. 54.
Michael Fried, "Absorption and Theatricality, Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot," Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980, p. 52, ill. 30.
Pierre Rosenberg, "Chardin tout l'oeuvre peint," Paris: Rizzoli (Flammarion), 1983, no. 98.
National Gallery of Art. Soap Bubbles of Jean-Siméon Chardin [brochure]. [Washington, DC]: [National Gallery of Art], [1991], fig. 10, unpaged (X-radiograph published).
Shuji Takashina with text by Shosaburo Kimura and Kimio Nakayama, "Chardin," (The Grand Masters of Painting-19), Tokyo: Chuokoron-Sha, 1985.
Iona and Peter Opie, "Children's Games with Things", Oxford University Press, 1997.
Philippe Cros, "Chardin," Paris: Societé nouvelle Adam Biro, 1999, ill p. 64.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, "A Grand Legacy," BMA News, January-February 2003, p.4-5, ill.
Manuela B. Mena Marques, "Manet en el Prado," 2003, p.109, ill.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, "60 Objects Countless Stories," BMA Today, Winter 2008-2009, pp. 6-7, ill. p. 6.
George Kouvaros, "Famous Faces Yet Not Themselves: The Misfits and Icons of Postwar America," Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010, pp.36-37, b&w ill. p. 37.
Pierre Rosenberg, "Chardin : Il pittore del silenzio," Ferrara: Ferrara Arte, 2010, fig. 44, p. 131, b&w ill.
Baltimore Museum of Art. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Celebrating a Museum. Baltimore: The Baltimore Museum of Art, 2014.
Morris, Herbert. "Disclosures: Essays on Art, Literature, and Philosophy." 2017. Figure 27, color ill.
Merle du Bourg, Alexis. Paris: Citadelles & Mazenod, 2020.
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