Still-life of a kitchen table with dressed partridge, sheared pheasants, a rack and leg of lamb, a basket of oranges and five ripe pears

Medium: Oil On Canvas
Size: 121 x 95 cm (47.6 x 37.4 in)
Signed (lower-left): Desportes 1734. 

Provenance: Paris, Palais Galliera, 29 November 1973, n°12 bis.

Exhibited: Probably the Salon of 1738: A canvas is described, of near exactly the same size (120 x 90 cm), ‘représentant des viandes prêtes à mettre en broche, comme perdrix rouges et grises; deux lapereaux et un faisan piqués, le tout rangé sur un bassin sur une table deux chapons bardez, et un rouge, et au dessus un Quarrez de mouton, un quartier d'agneau, des bigarades dans un panier, et au bas des poires de bon Chrétien, par M.Desportes  le père, conseiller de l'Académie’

Literature: M. et F. Faré, La Nature Morte au XVIIIème siècle, Fribourg, 1976, repr. p. 84, no. 127; G. de Lastic et P. Jacky, François Desportes, catalogue raisonné, Vol. II, Paris, 2010, N° P756

In 1713 the artist spent six months in England before he received a commission to paint a series of decorative panels for the French royal court at Versailles; Desportes also completed commissions for the chateaux Marly, Meudon, Compiègne and, his last royal commission, from Louis XV, for Choisy in 1742. The artist also completed paintings for the duc de Bourbon at Chantilly.

Desportes would often follow the King’s hunts with a small notebook he carried to make on-site sketches for still lifes of the game that resulted from the day's chase; the king could then choose which were to be worked-up into finished paintings. In several panels Desportes combined game with spectacular buffets and monumental pieces of silver service that all appear as if displayed in a dining room; these paintings are precious documents of the breath-taking silver from the reign of Louis XIV lost during the revolution.