Provenance
Acquired from the artist by Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein [1696-1772, Austrian ambassador to France, 1737-1741]; by descent through the Princes of Liechtenstein to Prince Franz Josef II von und zu Liechtenstein [1906-1989], Vienna and later Vaduz, until at least 1948; (Frederick Mont, Inc., New York); purchased 8 March 1951 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[1] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] Invoice from Frederick Mont to the Kress Foundation, copy in NGA curatorial files. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2218.
Accession Number
1952.5.38
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 46.2 x 37.5 cm (18 3/16 x 14 3/4 in.) | framed: 61.9 x 53.7 x 7.3 cm (24 3/8 x 21 1/8 x 2 7/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Samuel H. Kress Collection
Tags
Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Oil Painting Canvas French
Background & Context
Background Story
The Kitchen Maid of 1738 is one of the earliest and most radical of Chardin's genre paintings. A young servant woman sits at a table, absorbed in her work of preparing vegetables, while a cat waits hopefully at her side. The painting's power lies in its stillness: the maid is not performing for the viewer but genuinely focused on her task, and the cat is not a decorative addition but an observed detail of kitchen life. Chardin presents the scene without condescension or sentimentality — the maid is neither idealized nor pitied, simply seen.
Cultural Impact
This painting appeared at the Salon of 1738 and immediately divided opinion. The academic establishment, trained to value grand narrative painting, was uncertain what to make of a kitchen scene rendered with such seriousness. But Chardin had powerful supporters, including the critic La Font de Saint-Yenne, who recognized that The Kitchen Maid achieved through simplicity what most history painters failed to achieve through grandeur: genuine human presence.
Why It Matters
The Kitchen Maid is the foundation stone of modern genre painting. Every artist who has found dignity in everyday work — from Courbet to Andrew Wyeth — owes something to Chardin's insistence that a woman peeling vegetables deserves the same artistic attention as a goddess being born from foam.
