Kitchen Utensils with Cauldron, Frying Pan and Eggs

Jean-Georges Wille, a German-born engraver who had made his career in Paris, bought two small panels by Chardin on 14 August 1760, this one and its companion, and an old inscription on the back still records that it was his. By then the panel was almost 30 years old. The Louvre thinks it had once belonged to Chardin's own household, since it very probably appears in the inventory drawn up after the death of his first wife, Marguerite Saintard, which was completed in 1737.

The panel is 17 centimetres high and 21 wide, smaller than a sheet of writing paper. On a stone ledge Chardin set a tinned red-copper cauldron with an iron handle, a wooden pepper box, a leek, three eggs and an earthenware pan with a short handle, and signed his name at the lower left. In the 19th century it belonged to Paul Barroilhet, a leading baritone of the Paris Opéra, who also collected pictures.