Still Life with a Copper Pot and Ladle
October 10, 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.)
Classification
prints and drawing
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
197867
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
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 intim...
About the Artist
François Bonvin · 1817–1888
François Bonvin (1817–1887) was a French Realist painter whose quiet, meticulously observed canvases of domestic interiors and humble working-class subjects placed him among the most thoughtful and committed practitioners of the Realist movement in nineteenth-century France. Born in Vaugirard, on the outskirts of Paris, Bonvin came from modest origins and largely educated himself as an artist thro...