Anne Vallayer-Coster (1744-1818) was 26 years old when she was accepted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Exceptional considering the minimal number of women admitted between 1663 and 1793! Raised in a family of craftsmen near the court, the young lady initially learnt her skill from Madeleine Françoise Basseporte, a painting instructor to Louis XV's children, and landscaper Claude Joseph Vernet. Her specialty was still lifes, which she displayed regularly at the Salon and garnered her early notice from the most prominent thinkers of her day, including Diderot. Her success was so great that she created a reputation for herself in court: Marie-Antoinette signed her marriage contract with Jean-Pierre Sylvestre Coster, a lawyer at Parliament and Receiver General! But when the Revolution arrived, the wind shifted. Despite being near to power, Anne Vallayer-Coster fled the Terror and sought safety at Villemomble, a town some twenty kilometers from the city. Her creative career was at a stop at the time, and it would only slowly resume after 1795. She died in Paris in 1818.
Anne Vallayer-Coster made a name for herself in the still life genre, which was often considered inferior to historical painting. She gave the subject a grandeur that it deserved. This is demonstrated by The Attributes of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture (1769), which earned her admission to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, as well as its counterpart Instruments of Music (1770), and Still Life with Brioche, Fruit, and Vegetables (1775), which brought her closer to Chardin. "Mademoiselle Vallayer amazes and enchants us in equal measure. Diderot described her as having an incredible power of truth and a harmony of color that seduces. To a lesser extent, the artist experimented with portraiture, which she found to be more successful.
Anne Vallayer-Coster, Algae, Lithophytes, and Shells, 1769, oil on canvas, 130 x 97 cm, Louvre Museum, copyright Bridgeman Images.
seen in France www.vwart.com
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