Jean Siméon Chardin

The gilt and scrolls of the yacht decorator, the mirrors, and all the rest of his abominations were not to be found here.

Panels by Chardin painted for Madame de Pompadour occupied the walls.

The main lamp, a flying dragon by Benvenuto Cellini, clutching in its claws a globe of fire, had for satellites four torchbearers of bronze by Klaus.

A library, writing and smoking room combined, opened from the main saloon.

He was nearly breaking down, when he looked up and saw on the wall opposite him seven pastiches which he had made in the years gone by.

There was a Titian, and a George Morland, and a Chardin, two cows after Cooper, and an impressionist picture after some Frenchman whose name he had forgotten.

You like pictures? he said to the Australian, the tears still standing in his eyes.

I do, said the Australian with conviction.

It is not for me to take, but to give.

And if you will do what an old man begs of you and accept what I offer, if you will do more and of your courtesy keep all these things together which were once familiar to me, it will be enough reward.

The next day, therefore, the Australian sailed off to his distant continental home, carrying with him not only the Chardin, the Titian, the Cooper, the Impressionist picture, and the rest, but also the Van Tromp.

And three months after, they all hung in a row in the great new copper room at Warramunga.

And then we talked about...

Myself and former curator Vivian Webb, who did some initial curatorial research, as well as our colleagues in art history and theory, Michael Hill and Georgina, we talked about... you know, reassessing her in terms of the French... ..intimus tradition of French painters like Chardin, like Bonnard, Voyard, and then all the other artists that she loved and admired from Renaissance artists and just this sense of interiority in her work and the sense of the warmth of human presence, whether or not a person is depicted in the piece or in the image.

And so we really landed on that.

We're really happy with that as a... as a starting point.