Last November, the painting La fontaine by Jean-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) sold at Christie's in Paris for €7.11 million, setting a new auction record for the eighteenth-century French painter.
Also in Paris, however, this record was more than tripled on 23 March when the auction house Artcurial, together with Cabinet Turquin, which specialises in old paintings, auctioned Chardin's famous still life Le panier de fraises des bois ('The Strawberry Basket') from 1761. The estimate of €12-15 million already illustrated the expectations of the auction house, which were ultimately overshadowed by the result of €24.3 million ($26.7 mil or £20.6 mil). The painting set not only a record for Chardin, but for a French Old Master artist at auction, and the buyer was New York art dealer Adam Williams.
"A magical encounter took place in 2022 between our two teams and one of the greatest masterpieces of French painting," says Matthieu Fournier, Auctioneer and Director of Old Masters & 19th Century Paintings at Artcurial. "Beyond the personal and intimate emotion aroused by this treasure, it is a source of great pride to have offered Artcurial the opportunity to sell the first painting in its history for over €24 million on the occasion of the 20 years of the first French auction house."
See also: Antoine Watteau: Frivolity and Melancholy
Both Chardin's former and new record works had been part of the collection of the art collector and director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans, Eudoxe Marcille (1814-1890) in the second half of the nineteenth century. Marcille had inherited the paintings from his father, François Marcille (1790-1856), who was among the first people in France to rediscover eighteenth-century art. Until their respective auction, the two record works were inherited in succession.
Jean-Siméon Chardin was an exceptional phenomenon among the artists of the eighteenth century. He did not orientate himself with the classical and Rococo art promoted by the Academy, but created genre paintings and still lifes that differed significantly from the painting of his time with their muted colours and everyday themes. His work influenced major modern artists, including Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse and Édouard Manet.
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