Servants played a huge role in the daily life of the average French family. In the 1730s, Chardin wrote several paintings on the life of servants. For them, he often posed Marie Anna Chenot, his own maid.
Scenes from the “backroom” life of the ordinary Parisian house, created by Chardin, are good, first of all, by sincerity and attentive attitude towards people of the poorest class. At the same time, Chardin was alien to the desire to depict the servants “at any price,” “humiliated and insulted.” There is no social criticism in the picture “Return from the Market”, 1739.
The rosy maid is coquettishly holding a sack of food. With all this, Chardin, of course, did not think of presenting the existence of servants as carefree and idle. Looking at the “Woman pouring water from the tank,” the viewer almost physically feels how the mourning back of the maiden noice. Picture “In the basement,” approx. 1735 is permeated with a sense of the meaninglessness of life, stultified by an endless monotonous work.
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