The Laundress (Chardin)
The Laundress or A Young Girl Doing Laundry is the title of three works by the French artist Jean Siméon Chardin.Versions
Signed in the top left, the prime version of The Laundress dates to between 1733 and 1740. It formed part of the Crozat collection, which was mostly acquired by Catherine II of Russia on the advice of Denis Diderot in 1772, and so is now in the Hermitage Museum. It measures 38 by 48 cm.
A second version is now in the Nationalmuseum Stockholm; it is smaller and is signed in the centre on the stool under the tub. That version was exhibited at the 1737 Paris Salon and engraved by Cochin in 1739.
A third version was in the Henri de Rothschild collection but was destroyed in the Second World War.
