Lady Sealing a Letter 1732

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin painted "Lady Sealing a Letter" in France, sometime in the mid-18th century. It depicts a domestic scene, a woman sealing a letter while a young man, possibly a servant or son, assists her. Chardin's work is significant because it departs from the aristocratic fantasies of painters like Watteau. Instead, he focuses on the daily lives of the French bourgeoisie, reflecting a shifting social landscape. The act of letter sealing itself speaks to the growing importance of written communication and its role in commerce and personal relationships. The rise of a literate and lettered class can be traced through archives and epistolary novels. Chardin was embraced by the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, but in his own way, he democratized art, representing a move away from the concerns of the aristocracy, to the concerns of the merchant class, whose taste was starting to shape the art market. These are the contexts we must consider when looking at a painting like this one.