Boy with a Spinning-Top | |
Museum: | Louvre |
Height Metric: | 67 |
Width Metric: | 76 |
Year: | 1738 |
Artist: | Jean Siméon Chardin |
Boy with a Spinning-Top or Child with a Teetotum is a 1738 oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Jean Siméon Chardin, now in the Louvre in Paris, which acquired it in 1907.[1]
It is based on a 1735 work now in the São Paulo Museum of Art and shows Auguste-Gabriel, son of the jeweller Charles Godefroy, contemplating a teetotum or spinning top.[2] The painting is in line with Age of Enlightenment ideas on childhood and play, especially those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. On the table in the background are an inkwell, a pen and books, whilst a drawer in the table is open to show a porte-crayon.