The French painter Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) is considered by modern critics one of the most important artists of the 18th century as well as one of the most distinguished painters in the history of French art.

Jean Baptiste Chardin was born in Paris on Nov. 2, 1699, the son of a cabinetmaker. He studied painting with Jacques Cazes, Nöel Nicholas Coypel, and Jean Baptiste Van Loo. In 1728 Chardin was admitted to the Royal Academy as "a painter of animals and fruit," not a high rank in the academy but one which satisfied the unpretentious artist. The two paintings which won him admission into the academy were The Rayfish and The Buffet, paintings of fish, fruit, jugs, and other objects decoratively assembled in rather rich compositions enlivened by the presence of animals; both works are in the tradition of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish still-life painting...