Still Life with Plums by Jean-Simeon Chardin

Full artwork / 1600 x 1439 px

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French Rococo

SP / CHARDIN-STIL

Still Life with Plums

Dark plums, a bottle, a glass and two loaves emerge slowly from a brown interior, making weight, reflection and surface the still life's central evidence.

Living Canvas / Visual evidence

Still Life with Plums: Meaning, Symbols and Visual Analysis

Five regions move through plums, bottle, glass, bread and tabletop to show how Chardin differentiates dark fruit, reflective liquid, porous crust and heavy ceramic or glass forms.

Date: c. 1730
Museum: The Frick Collection
Palette

Evidence 01 / Details1.70x

01 / 05

What remains debated

Evidence has limits.

The objects can invite moral readings about appetite, modesty or transience, but the museum record does not assign one fixed symbolic program. The strongest evidence concerns material difference, optical behavior and spatial balance.

Questions about this painting

Meaning without a thin page

What should I look at first in Still Life with Plums?

Begin with the plums emerge by small changes inside darkness, then compare it with the bottle supplies the central vertical and the glass makes transparency visible. The sequence moves from visible structure toward interpretation.

What does Still Life with Plums mean?

Verify / 02

Verify the object record

Titles, dates, media, dimensions, institutional identifiers and retained sources remain separate from interpretation so each fact can be checked independently.

Record completeness

Research ready

100%

Primary title: Still Life with Plums
Original title: Still Life with Plums
Creator: Jean-Simeon Chardin
Date: c. 1730
Movement: French Rococo
Object type: Painting
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 45.1 × 50.2 cm
Holding institution: The Frick Collection
Current location: The Frick Collection, New York
Accession number: 1945.1.152
Credit line: Purchased by The Frick Collection, 1945
Attribution: Jean-Simeon Chardin
Digital image: 1600 × 1439 px

Record control

Status: verified
Last verified: 2026-08-08
Verified by: SeePaintings editorial verification
Internal ID: chardin-still-life-plums

The Frick Collection object record and reproduction were matched to the pilot master by aspect ratio and structural image comparison before publication.

Open museum record

Provenance note

Purchased by The Frick Collection in 1945.

Verification note

Title, date, medium, dimensions, accession number and credit line follow the museum's current online object record.

References

01Still Life with Plums · The Frick Collection

Image use and download

Work: public-domain
Digital image: terms-review-required
Checked: 2026-08-08

The underlying artwork is public domain; separate conditions may apply to the museum's digital reproduction.

Confirm the Frick Collection's current image permission terms before reuse.

Image source Download / IIIF

Compare / 03

Compare evidence, not just images

Set this work beside a related painting to test differences in date, artist, movement, subject, palette and visible evidence.

Open side-by-side comparison

historical

Still Life

Paul Cezanne · c. 1890

Material weight, transparency and tabletop space

The pairing contrasts Chardin's tonal material observation with Cezanne's competing viewpoints.

Compare this pair

Learn / 04

Follow this painting through the knowledge graph

Continue through artist, movement, subject, emotion, color and visual-analysis methods. Each destination adds independent context instead of repeating the same interpretation.

Analyze this painting Elements of art Composition guide still life plums bread glass bottle French art

Historical significance

Why this work still matters

The work provides a precise historical counterpoint to later still lifes by Cezanne: both make seeing unstable, but Chardin does so through light, opacity and material difference rather than competing perspective.

Detail coordinates

Look more closely

01Let the glass separate reflection from transparency.
02Compare the dark plums with the warmer bread crusts.
03Find how the isolated plum pulls the arrangement toward the viewer.

Reuse / 05

Turn the record into a usable result

Carry the verified object identity into a citation, classroom worksheet or source trail. Reuse means research, teaching and creative reference, not merely downloading an image.