Vallayer-Coster joined the French Royal Academy in 1770 as a painter of still life, the genre conventionally considered suitable to women artists in eighteenth-century Europe and the lowest of the Academy’s hierarchy of genres. She enjoyed favorable critical opinion throughout her career, as well as the patronage of Queen Marie Antoinette before the Revolution and Empress Josephine after. This painting was probably among the four still lifes and two portraits that Vallayer-Coster exhibited at the Salon of 1781.
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Title:Vase of Flowers and Conch Shell
Artist:Anne Vallayer-Coster (French, Paris 1744–1818 Paris)
Date:1780
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:Oval, 19 3/4 x 15 in. (50.2 x 38.1 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1906
Object Number:07.225.504
Anne Vallayer's father was a goldsmith at the Gobelins tapestry manufactory in Paris and she lived in the Gobelins complex for the first decade of her life. It has been suggested that she studied under Joseph Vernet (1714–1789). She was received into the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1770 on the strength of two still life paintings representing attributes of the arts and of music (both in the Musée du Louvre, Paris). Although her work is characterized by a brighter palette and more detailed description, her still lifes bear vivid witness to the influence of Jean Siméon Chardin (1699–1779). She married Jean Pierre Silvestre Coster in 1781. From 1771 to 1817 she exhibited frequently at the Salon. She enjoyed favorable critical opinion throughout her career, as well as the prestigious patronage of both Queen Marie Antoinette (1755–1793) before the Revolution and Empress Josephine (1763–1814) afterwards.
Here Vallayer-Coster juxtaposes a pink conch shell with a vase of colorful flowers. The painting demonstrates an interest in texture and reflection, in the play of light on different surfaces, such as the porcelain and gilt of the vase and the iridescent sheen of the shell. It is signed at bottom right "Mlle Vallayer" and may be one of three small oval paintings of flowers and fruits that she exhibited at the Salon of 1781. Vallayer-Coster often painted flowers, especially the anemones and marguerites depicted here; the shell is an unusual inclusion. She was not only a painter of flowers, but of a wide range of still life subjects, from food to military instruments, as well as portraits and genre scenes.
[Francesca Whitlum-Cooper 2010]
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): Mlle Vallayer / 1780
Monsieur Cournerie, Paris (until 1891; his estate sale, Féral, Paris, December 8–9, 1891, no. 28, for Fr 700); [Georges Hoentschel, Paris, until 1906; sold to Morgan]; J. Pierpont Morgan, New York (1906)
Paris. Salon. August 25–?September 25, 1781, no. 105 [one of three still-lifes by Vallayer-Coster exhibited under this number].
North Salem, N. Y. Hammond Museum. "Women in Art: Creative Talents of the Past and Present," November 9–December 22, 1974, no catalogue.
New York. Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York University. "Circa 1776," November 1–24, 1976, unnumbered cat. (p. 35).
Syracuse, N.Y. Everson Museum of Art. "Flower Paintings," September 14–October 21, 1979, no catalogue?
Washington. National Gallery of Art. "Anne Vallayer-Coster: Painter to the Court of Marie-Antoinette," June 30–September 22, 2002, no. 61.
Dallas Museum of Art. "Anne Vallayer-Coster: Painter to the Court of Marie-Antoinette," October 13, 2002–January 5, 2003, no. 61.
New York. Frick Collection. "Anne Vallayer-Coster: Painter to the Court of Marie-Antoinette," January 21–March 23, 2003, no. 61.
Denis Diderot. Salon de 1781. 1781 [published in Seznec 1967, p. 365], comments on three oval still lifes by Vallayer-Coster: "Il y a de la vérité, mais la touche est molle et froide; rien de la finesse particulière de dessin et de pinceau que ce genre exige".
André Pératé and Gaston Brière. Collections Georges Hoentschel. Vol. 3, XVIIIe siècle. Paris, 1908, colorpl. 136.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 98.
Charles Sterling. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of French Paintings. Vol. 1, XV–XVIII Centuries. Cambridge, Mass., 1955, p. 179, ill., identifies it as one of three ovals exhibited under number 105 in the 1781 Salon.
Jean Seznec and Jean Adhémar, ed. Salons.. By Denis Diderot. Vol. 4, 1769, 1771, 1775, 1781. Oxford, 1967, pp. 324, 365, no. 106 [sic for 105], fig. 150.
Marianne Roland Michel. Anne Vallayer-Coster, 1744–1818. Paris, 1970, pp. 125, 269, no. 67, ill. p. 121, adds the 1891 Cournerie sale to the picture's provenance.
Michel Faré and Fabrice Faré. La vie silencieuse en France: La nature morte au XVIIIe siècle. Fribourg, Switzerland, 1976, pp. 229–30, ill.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 385, ill.
Nicole Hoentschel et al. Georges Hoentschel. Saint-Rémy-en-l'Eau, 1999, ill. pp. 202, 205 (gallery installations), reproduces photographs of it hanging in Hoentschel's gallery on Boulevard Flandrin.
Eik Kahng in Eik Kahng and Marianne Roland Michel. Anne Vallayer-Coster: Painter to the Court of Marie-Antoinette. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington. Dallas, 2002, pp. 50–51, 206–7, no. 61, figs. 15–16 (color details), colorpl. 29, ill. p. 206, describes the flowers as "almost clinically precise" but also comments on the application of unblended color elsewhere in the picture.
Claire Barry in Eik Kahng and Marianne Roland Michel. Anne Vallayer-Coster: Painter to the Court of Marie-Antoinette. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington. Dallas, 2002, pp. 96, 107, 109.
Yuriko Jackall inAmerica Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2017, p. 292.
Melissa Hyde inAmerica Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2017, p. 81, fig. 12 (color).
Colta Ives. Public Parks, Private Gardens: Paris to Provence. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2018, pp. 129, 189, fig. 124 (color).
Katharine Baetjer. French Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the Early Eighteenth Century through the Revolution. New York, 2019, pp. 299–301, no. 100, ill. (color).
Carol Santoleri in Katharine Baetjer. French Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the Early Eighteenth Century through the Revolution. New York, 2019, p. 31.
Linda Wolk-Simon. "In a New Light." Apollo 193 (March 2021), fig. 3 (color, installation view).
Alexandre Lafore. "Le Metropolitan Museum achète un tableau de la marquise de Grollier." Tribune de l'art (August 31, 2022) [http://www.latribunedelart.com/le-metropolitan-achete-un-tableau-de-la-marquise-de-grollier].
Sophie Mouquin and Christophe Huchet de Quénetain inAnne Vallayer-Coster: Protégée de Marie-Antoinette. Exh. cat., Galerie Eric Coatalem. Paris, 2023, pp. 76, 80, 90 n. 98, p. 91 n. 144, fig. 44 (color).
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