Still Life, Chinese Vase

A noted painter of still lifes, Emil Carlsen immigrated to America from Denmark in 1872 at the age of nineteen. Shortly thereafter, he taught at the Art Institute of Chicago before returning to Europe in 1875 to study the works of the eighteenth-century French still-life painter Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. Working in Paris and later in New York, Carlsen became the leading American proponent of the nineteenth-century Chardin revival. Still Life, Chinese Vase, an oil on panel completed in 1922, epitomizes the late phase of Carlsen's career, when his emulation of Chardin achieved its highest level. With an economy of means and attention to the subtleties of light, form, and texture, Carlsen captured both the quiet mood and soft atmosphere of the French master. The still life's harmonious colors and balanced arrangement of objects add to its serenity and contemplativeness.