Jean Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) (after) - Lot 44

Jean Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) (after) The Tôton. 1742. Engraved by Lépicié. 208x218mm. Bocher 50. Good proof on laid paper, damaged, washed and restored, finely lined. Small perceptible damage in the letter. Small margins. The original painting was exhibited at the Louvre in 1738, under the title Un petit tableau représentant le portrait du fils de Mr Godefroy, joaillier, appliqué à voir tourner un toton. The Age of Enlightenment, inspired by the writings of Rousseau, took a new interest in the figure of the child and "natural" pedagogy. The subject represents the young Auguste-Gabriel Godefroy (1728-1813), here aged around ten, in his studious, bourgeois environment. Halfway between portrait and genre scene, the composition seems suspended in the movement of the toton, a kind of spinning top, a small disc of bone or ivory with a hole into which a pivot, such as a match, is inserted. This game absorbs the child, allowing him to remain calm and still while the painter portrays him. He is standing in front of a chiffonier with a chalk holder protruding from its half-open drawer. Leaving his study behind, he has pushed aside books, quill, inkwell and paper to make way for the spinning top, which seems to vacillate between the attributes of the arts and letters. The allusion to fortune and changing destiny is explicit in the four engraved verses. Later, Auguste-Gabriel would become Controller General of the French Navy. Like his father, he was also a collector, notably of paintings by Chardin.