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The House of Cards
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardinprobably 1737
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Details
- Title: The House of Cards
- Creator: Jean Siméon Chardin
- Date Created: probably 1737
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 82.2 x 66 cm (32 3/8 x 26 in.) framed: 107.3 x 92.1 x 10.2 cm (42 1/4 x 36 1/4 x 4 in.)
- Provenance: Catherine II, empress of Russia [1729-1796], by 1774, for the Imperial Hermitage Gallery, Saint Petersburg;[1] purchased March 1931 through (Matthiesen Gallery, Berlin; P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London; and M. Knoedler & Co., New York) by Andrew W. Mellon [1855-1937], Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.; deeded 1 May 1937 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[2] gift 1937 to NGA. [1] The painting first appeared in a Hermitage catalogue in 1774. See Serge Ernst, "Notes sur des tableaux français de l'Ermitage," _Revue de l'Art_ 68, no. 365 (November 1935): 135-144, who says that the manuscript catalogue was drawn up by Ernst Milich between 1777 and 1785; _Little Girl with a Shuttlecock_ is no. 407; _The House of Cards_ is no. 408. Rosenberg, in Pierre Rosenberg, _Chardin, 1699-1779_, Exh. cat. (Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, Cleveland Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), Cleveland, 1979: 234, under no. 72, states (in reference to the same catalogue, which he dates to 1774, following Paul Lacroix, "Musée de Palais de l'Hermitage sous le règne de Catherine II," _Revue Universelle des Arts_ 13 [1861]: 178, no. 408) that "no. 408 '_Un jeune garcon faisant des maisons de cartes_' refers indisputably to the painting now in Washington." [2] The dates of the Mellon purchase and the deed to the Mellon Trust are according to Mellon records in NGA curatorial files and David Finley's notebook (donated to NGA in 1977 and now in Gallery Archives).
- Medium: oil on canvas
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