GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Painted at the height of Anne Vallayer-Coster's artistic powers, this still-life painting belonged to a high-ranking official of the entourage of the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. It was exhibited at the Salon of 1777, the year after it was painted. Vallayer-Coster was one of four women painters who enjoyed the privileges and prestige of membership in the Royal Academy during the last quarter of the 18th century. Through the patronage of her earliest champion, Marie Antoinette, and the sheer virtuosity of her talent, Vallayer-Coster's career flourished throughout the 1770s and 80s, only fading with the tumult of the French Revolution in 1789. Celebrated especially for her brilliant depictions of flower arrangements, Vallayer-Coster was considered the successor to Jean-Siméon Chardin as the foremost still-life painter of the French school.
Adapted from
Heather MacDonald, DMA label copy, 2009.
NOTES
Created 1776
See Working Among Flowers: Floral Still-Life Painting in Nineteenth-century France- in Dropbox, Digi assets- Euro
Collection of M. de Montullé; vente Collection Cournerie, 1891; vente Collection Lacroix, 1901; Didier Aaron & Cie, Paris; Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, Mrs. John B. O’Hara Fund and gift of Michael L. Rosenberg, 1998.
BIOGRAPHY
The remarkable career ofVallayer-Coster rivals that of her female colleague, the better known Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755-1842). The daughter of a goldsmith for the Gobelins tapestry manufacture, Vallayer's earliest exposure to the arts was no doubt through her father's example. While little is known of her technical training, we do know she was the student of the great landscape painter Claude-Joseph Vernet. Vernet's legendary insistence on the necessity of studying nature would account for the youthful Vallayer's precocious ability to so vividly conjure the illusion of things. On July 28, 1770, the twenty-six-year-old Anne was accepted and received into the Academy as a still-life painter. This unusual admission of a woman painter with no official sponsor into the coveted ranks of the Academy did not, however, go unchecked. Just two months after Vallayer's nomination, the Academy made it official policy to restrict the places allocated for women to four.
At some time between 1788 and 1789, Vallayer's talents attracted the attentions of the Queen. As would be the case for Vigee-Lebrun, the protection of Marie-Antoinette was a boon for Vallayer's career. We know that the Queen herself possessed one of Vallayer' s paintings of a Vestal virgin. We also know that high-level members of MarieAntoinette's entourage owned examples of Anne's work. A case in point are the pendant
pair of floral still-life paintings recently acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art, which are documented as having belonged to one of the Queen's officials. Even more remarkable is the residence and studio that were built in the galleries of the Louvre specifically for Anne at the direct command of the Queen.
Although she would eventually achieve critical fame as a specialist of floral still life, Vallayer also tried her hand at the more prestigious genres of portraiture and genre painting. However, the tepid critical reception of her early attempts at the figure quickly discouraged her from attempting to compete with the likes of Vigée-Lebrun or Adelaide Labille-Guiard, with whom Vallayer compared badly as a portraitist. Nevertheless, we have evidence that Vallayer was commissioned to paint portraits by high-level members of the court, including Marie-Antoinette. While the portrait does not survive, its very commission confirms the degree of esteem in which the artist was held by the Queen.
Like Vigée-Lebrun, after the fall of the ancien regime in 1789, Vallayer's career suffered due to her life-long association with Marie-Antoinette. In the tumultuous years after the Revolution, Anne wisely chose to retreat with her husband to a country house, only returning to Paris in 1795. While she never ceased to paint, her sumptuous flower paintings were no longer in fashion, eclipsed by the moralizing fervor of Jacques-Louis David's neoclassical history paintings. Throughout the next century and a half, Vallayer remained all but forgotten, her paintingsoften confused with the work of her generational predecessor, the better known Jean-Simeon Chardin.
It is only in the latter half of the 20th century that the talents of Vallayer-Coster have again been recognized. In 1970 Marianne Roland Michel published the first monograph devoted to the artist's oeuvre. Stylistically closer to Henri Horace Roland Delaporte, and quite different in touch from the rougher paint application of Chardin, Vallayer-Coster achieved a quiet delicacy in her art that distinguishes her from her near contemporaries. The Rosenberg Vase of Flowers is a fine example of her daring brilliance of palette and her deft ability to capture the subtle textural variety of flowers, whether roses, fleur-delys, or chrysanthemums.
Eik Kahng, The Michael L. Rosenberg Collection (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, n.d.), 6-7.
1998.52.FA- VALLAYER-COSTER:
Mr. Rosenberg greatly admired Anne Vallayer-Coster. His collection included a little still life, A Vase of Flowers and Two Plums on a Marble Tabletop (fig. 9), and he, of course, contributed toward the acquisition of the beautiful pair of paintings purchased for the DMA, including Bouquet of Flowers in a Blue Porcelain Vase (fig. 10). [8] Vallayer-Coster was brought up in the Gobelins tapestry factory complex. Her father was a goldsmith and clockmaker, and thus she grew up literally in the context of decorative art. Mr. Rosenberg’s still life, considered an easel painting, may have served originally as a Gobelins tapestry model. This tapestry was made for the back of a chair currently in the collection of the Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris. (21)
[8] The small still life was sold from the Rosenberg Collection as Anne Vallayer-Coster, A Vase of Flowers and Two Plums on a Marble Tabletop, 1781, oil on canvas, oval, Christie’s, New York, January 26, 2005, lot 50. The pendant works include fig. 10 and Bouquet of Flowers in a Terracotta Vase, with Peaches and Grapes, 1776, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, Mrs. John B. O’Hara Fund and gift of Michael L. Rosenberg, 1998.51.FA.
Philip Conisbee, "Michael L. Rosenberg's Eighteenth Century," 11-23, in French Art of the Eigteenth Century: The Michael L. Rosenberg Lecture Series at the Dallas Museum of Art, Heather MacDonald ed. Dallas Museum of Art and the Michael L. Rosenberg Foundation, distributed by Yale University press, New Haven, CT, 2016.
Anne Vallayer-Coster was one of the most prominent female artists of the eighteenth century. Although lacking the benefit of formal academic
training, she was received into the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture with acclaim in 1770. Thereafter, she forged a brilliant career,
exhibiting regularly at the Salon until the Revolution and gaining the support of powerful patrons, most notably Marie Antoinette. These
two sumptuous floral still lifes were painted as a pair in 1776 and exhibited at the Salon the following year. The paintings are impressive for both
their monumental scale and the intricate play of contrasts that Vallayer-Coster sets up between the elements of the two still lifes, for instance
opposing the slick sheen of blue porcelain and gilded bronze in one vase to the chalky dry surface of terracotta in the other. The two canvases
have always remained together, allowing a full appreciation of Vallayer-Coster’s technical virtuosity and compositional acumen.
Bonnie Pitman, ed., Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 174.
Artist/designers
Vallayer-Coster_Anne: ULAN: 500007243
Cultures
Geography
Place of origin: Paris (France): TGN: 7008038
Process/materials
Historical periods
1776
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
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WEB RESOURCES
- National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC~Learn more about Anne Vallayer-Coster.
- DMA Uncrated~Check out the blogs from the Dallas Museum of Art that include works by Vallayer-Coster.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York~View another still life by Vallayer-Coster.
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General Description
Painted at the height of Anne Vallayer-Coster's artistic powers, this still-life painting belonged to a high-ranking official of the entourage of the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. It was exhibited at the Salon of 1777, the year after it was painted. Vallayer-Coster was one of four women painters who enjoyed the privileges and prestige of membership in the Royal Academy during the last quarter of the 18th century. Through the patronage of her earliest champion, Marie Antoinette, and the sheer virtuosity of her talent, Vallayer-Coster's career flourished throughout the 1770s and 80s, only fading with the tumult of the French Revolution in 1789. Celebrated especially for her brilliant depictions of flower arrangements, Vallayer-Coster was considered the successor to Jean-Siméon Chardin as the foremost still-life painter of the French school.
Adapted from
Heather MacDonald, DMA label copy, 2009.
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC~Learn more about Anne Vallayer-Coster.
- DMA Uncrated~Check out the blogs from the Dallas Museum of Art that include works by Vallayer-Coster.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York~View another still life by Vallayer-Coster.
Notes
Created 1776
See Working Among Flowers: Floral Still-Life Painting in Nineteenth-century France- in Dropbox, Digi assets- Euro
Collection of M. de Montullé; vente Collection Cournerie, 1891; vente Collection Lacroix, 1901; Didier Aaron & Cie, Paris; Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, Mrs. John B. O’Hara Fund and gift of Michael L. Rosenberg, 1998.
BIOGRAPHY
The remarkable career ofVallayer-Coster rivals that of her female colleague, the better known Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755-1842). The daughter of a goldsmith for the Gobelins tapestry manufacture, Vallayer's earliest exposure to the arts was no doubt through her father's example. While little is known of her technical training, we do know she was the student of the great landscape painter Claude-Joseph Vernet. Vernet's legendary insistence on the necessity of studying nature would account for the youthful Vallayer's precocious ability to so vividly conjure the illusion of things. On July 28, 1770, the twenty-six-year-old Anne was accepted and received into the Academy as a still-life painter. This unusual admission of a woman painter with no official sponsor into the coveted ranks of the Academy did not, however, go unchecked. Just two months after Vallayer's nomination, the Academy made it official policy to restrict the places allocated for women to four.
At some time between 1788 and 1789, Vallayer's talents attracted the attentions of the Queen. As would be the case for Vigee-Lebrun, the protection of Marie-Antoinette was a boon for Vallayer's career. We know that the Queen herself possessed one of Vallayer' s paintings of a Vestal virgin. We also know that high-level members of MarieAntoinette's entourage owned examples of Anne's work. A case in point are the pendant
pair of floral still-life paintings recently acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art, which are documented as having belonged to one of the Queen's officials. Even more remarkable is the residence and studio that were built in the galleries of the Louvre specifically for Anne at the direct command of the Queen.
Although she would eventually achieve critical fame as a specialist of floral still life, Vallayer also tried her hand at the more prestigious genres of portraiture and genre painting. However, the tepid critical reception of her early attempts at the figure quickly discouraged her from attempting to compete with the likes of Vigée-Lebrun or Adelaide Labille-Guiard, with whom Vallayer compared badly as a portraitist. Nevertheless, we have evidence that Vallayer was commissioned to paint portraits by high-level members of the court, including Marie-Antoinette. While the portrait does not survive, its very commission confirms the degree of esteem in which the artist was held by the Queen.
Like Vigée-Lebrun, after the fall of the ancien regime in 1789, Vallayer's career suffered due to her life-long association with Marie-Antoinette. In the tumultuous years after the Revolution, Anne wisely chose to retreat with her husband to a country house, only returning to Paris in 1795. While she never ceased to paint, her sumptuous flower paintings were no longer in fashion, eclipsed by the moralizing fervor of Jacques-Louis David's neoclassical history paintings. Throughout the next century and a half, Vallayer remained all but forgotten, her paintingsoften confused with the work of her generational predecessor, the better known Jean-Simeon Chardin.
It is only in the latter half of the 20th century that the talents of Vallayer-Coster have again been recognized. In 1970 Marianne Roland Michel published the first monograph devoted to the artist's oeuvre. Stylistically closer to Henri Horace Roland Delaporte, and quite different in touch from the rougher paint application of Chardin, Vallayer-Coster achieved a quiet delicacy in her art that distinguishes her from her near contemporaries. The Rosenberg Vase of Flowers is a fine example of her daring brilliance of palette and her deft ability to capture the subtle textural variety of flowers, whether roses, fleur-delys, or chrysanthemums.
Eik Kahng, The Michael L. Rosenberg Collection (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, n.d.), 6-7.
1998.52.FA- VALLAYER-COSTER:
Mr. Rosenberg greatly admired Anne Vallayer-Coster. His collection included a little still life, A Vase of Flowers and Two Plums on a Marble Tabletop (fig. 9), and he, of course, contributed toward the acquisition of the beautiful pair of paintings purchased for the DMA, including Bouquet of Flowers in a Blue Porcelain Vase (fig. 10). [8] Vallayer-Coster was brought up in the Gobelins tapestry factory complex. Her father was a goldsmith and clockmaker, and thus she grew up literally in the context of decorative art. Mr. Rosenberg’s still life, considered an easel painting, may have served originally as a Gobelins tapestry model. This tapestry was made for the back of a chair currently in the collection of the Musée Nissim de Camondo, Paris. (21)
[8] The small still life was sold from the Rosenberg Collection as Anne Vallayer-Coster, A Vase of Flowers and Two Plums on a Marble Tabletop, 1781, oil on canvas, oval, Christie’s, New York, January 26, 2005, lot 50. The pendant works include fig. 10 and Bouquet of Flowers in a Terracotta Vase, with Peaches and Grapes, 1776, oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, Mrs. John B. O’Hara Fund and gift of Michael L. Rosenberg, 1998.51.FA.
Philip Conisbee, "Michael L. Rosenberg's Eighteenth Century," 11-23, in French Art of the Eigteenth Century: The Michael L. Rosenberg Lecture Series at the Dallas Museum of Art, Heather MacDonald ed. Dallas Museum of Art and the Michael L. Rosenberg Foundation, distributed by Yale University press, New Haven, CT, 2016.
Anne Vallayer-Coster was one of the most prominent female artists of the eighteenth century. Although lacking the benefit of formal academic
training, she was received into the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture with acclaim in 1770. Thereafter, she forged a brilliant career,
exhibiting regularly at the Salon until the Revolution and gaining the support of powerful patrons, most notably Marie Antoinette. These
two sumptuous floral still lifes were painted as a pair in 1776 and exhibited at the Salon the following year. The paintings are impressive for both
their monumental scale and the intricate play of contrasts that Vallayer-Coster sets up between the elements of the two still lifes, for instance
opposing the slick sheen of blue porcelain and gilded bronze in one vase to the chalky dry surface of terracotta in the other. The two canvases
have always remained together, allowing a full appreciation of Vallayer-Coster’s technical virtuosity and compositional acumen.
Bonnie Pitman, ed., Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 174.
Artist/designers
Vallayer-Coster_Anne: ULAN: 500007243
Cultures
Geography
Place of origin: Paris (France): TGN: 7008038
Process/materials
Historical periods
1776
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
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AUDIO ASSETS
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