Still Life with a Copper Pot and Ladle

1879·Black and red chalk with traces of incising on tan laid paper, laid down on tan wove paper·14.8 × 20.2 cm (5 7/8 × 8 in.)

<p>Poor and largely self-taught, François Bonvin saved money for his art studies by working as a clerk in the Paris police department. He became friends with the painter Gustave Courbet and art critic Jules Champfleury and was influenced by the naturalism of earlier masters, such as Jan Vermeer and Jean-Baptiste Chardin. Bonvin came to be regarded as one of the founders of the French Realist movement. In 1879 ill health forced the artist to concentrate on small-scale still lifes, such as this intimate chalk study of humble kitchen implements.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1879
Medium: Black and red chalk with traces of incising on tan laid paper, laid down on tan wove paper
Dimensions: 14.8 × 20.2 cm (5 7/8 × 8 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: François Bonvin

Artist

François Bonvin

Printmaking

François Bonvin was a French painter of interior scenes and still lifes working primarily in oil during the 19th century. He specialized in intimate domestic arrangements and modest household objects rendered with meticulous attention to light and material texture. Active from the 1840s onward, Bonvin developed a practice centered on the quiet dignity of everyday life, working in a realist tradition that positioned humble subject matter as worthy of sustained artistic attention.

Paris, France

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