Jean Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) (after) The Blower. 1744. Engraved by Lépicié. 275x374mm. Bocher 48. Fine proof on laid paper, trimmed on the plate cut, washed, with minor restorations. Slight light foxing. The original painting was exhibited at the Louvre in 1737, under the title Un chimiste dans son laboratoire. It was painted for one of Chardin's earliest admirers, Conrad-Alexandre de Rothenbourg (1683 or 1684-1735). It is now in the Musée du Louvre. The model is the painter Joseph Aved (1702-1766), a friend of Chardin's and, like him, a member of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Diderot wrote of this painting on September 15, 1753: "M.Chardin exhibited, among several very mediocre paintings, that of a Chemist busy reading. This painting seemed to me to be very beautiful and worthy of Rembrandt, although little has been said about it". The engraving was advertised in the Mercure de France in January 1745 and depicts "a blower in his laboratory attentively reading a book on alchemy". "By depicting Aved, Chardin undoubtedly wanted to pay tribute to a friend, but also to the man from whom he had taken his first figure lessons." (Pierre Rosenberg, Chardin 1699-1779, exhibition cat., Paris, Grand Palais, RMN, 1979, p.212).