Chardin's earliest-known painting is a sign he made for a friend of his father who was a surgeon. The most notable French artist of the day, Antoine Watteau, had similarly worked painting signs, and Chardin was perhaps inspired to do the same by Watteau's example. Chardin regularly showed his works at the annual Salon exhibition and the Exhibition de la Jeunesse, an open-air show held in June at the Place Define. He gathered some impressive reviews, with perhaps the most impressive given by author and philosopher Denis Diderot.
A decisive moment in Chardin's career came when the artist was asked to paint a hare or a rabbit. The resulting work was such a huge success that he almost immediately received a commission to paint a duck, and his future as a still-life artist was secure. The still-life paintings were done in the style of Thea century Dutch paintings and very often depicted dead animals and other things connected with hunting that were highly prized by the aristocracy.
After he had success with The Ray Fish , which he had exhibited at the Exposition de la Jeunesse in 1728, he followed the advice of fellow artists and submitted it and The Buffet to the Royal Academy as diploma works. As a result, Chardin was made Associate and Academician on the same day -- no small achievement for a 28-year-old.
In 1730, Chardin met his first important patron, Count Conrad-Alexander de Rothenbourg, who was appointed Ambassador to the Court of Spain after an illustrious military career. By 1731, Chardin was making a good living from his painting. He married Marguerite Saintard and they had two children: a son, Jean, and a daughter, Marguerite-Agnes, who died young.
Chardin abandoned his still-life work in favor of genre painting -- female figures, portraits of children or a combination of the two -- made in the style of Dutch painters such as Vermeer and Gabriel Metsu. The earliest of these works by Chardin is The Lady Sealing a Letter , exhibited in 1734. He followed with paintings such as Woman at the Urn and The Laundress and his genre paintings were best represented perhaps by The Diligent Mother and Saying Grace, both from 1740. Chardin's style stood in contrast to the Rococo style of Francois Boucher and Jean-Honore Fragonard, both popular 18th-Century painters.
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