Saying Grace

When Saying Grace was engraved in 1744, four lines of verse went under the print. They describe the sister laughing on the sly at her little brother, who stammers his prayer and hurries through it without a care, his appetite being reason enough. Scholars have argued over whether the smaller child is a boy or a girl. Small boys of the time wore skirts until they were put into breeches, and Chardin left a clue in the drum hanging from the back of the child's low chair, with a drumstick lying on the floor.

The mother leans over the table with the plates, waiting for the prayer to end before she serves the soup. Chardin showed the picture at the Salon of 1740 together with its companion, a mother going over her daughter's needlework, and in November he gave both to Louis XV. The subject sold well, and he painted it again several times. One version, dated 1744, is in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, and a second, slightly wider one also belongs to the Louvre.