Still Life with Dead Partridge

The dominant motif of this kitchen fruit-and-game still life is the dead partridge hanging in a larder between a basket of pears and a pewter dish of plums. The lifeless animal is suspended by one of its shanks from a crude nail driven into the wall and dangles, head down, above the dish of plums. One wing is folded close to the body, while the other is drooping and fanning out.

The picture showcases Chardin’s manner of combining carefully controlled composition with free brushwork. The bird’s white, rust and brown-speckled plumage is rendered with visible brushstrokes and impasto and stands out against the dimly lit brown niche. In his treatment of the other objects, among them peaches, celery stalks, blackberries and figs, Chardin skilfully varied his technique, alternating between lively brushwork and chalky mark-making, glazes and impasto, tonal chiaroscuro and pronounced highlights. And it was precisely this manner that linked him to the Flemish and Dutch still life painters of the seventeenth century while also making him a paragon for painters in the second half of the nineteenth century.