Anne Vallayer-Coster 

(21 December 1744 – 28 February 1818)

was a major 18th-century French painter best known for still lifes.
She achieved fame and recognition very early in her career, being
admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in
1770, at the age of twenty-six.[1]
Despite the low status that still life painting had at this time,
Vallayer-Coster’s highly developed skills, especially in the
depiction of flowers, soon generated a great deal of attention from
collectors and other artists.[1] Her “precocious talent and the rave
reviews” earned her the attention of the court, where Marie
Antoinette took a particular interest in Vallayer-Coster's paintings.
[1]
Her life was determinedly private, dignified and hard-working. She
survived the bloodshed of the Reign of Terror,[2] but the fall of the
French monarchy, who were her primary patrons, caused her
reputation to decline.
In addition to still lifes, she painted portraits and genre paintings,
but because of the restrictions placed on women at the time her
success at figure painting was limited.[3]
Born in 1744 on the banks of the Bièvre near the Seine, Vallayer-
Coster was one of four daughters born to a goldsmith of the royal
family et compagnon des Gobelins.[3] The artist's family tapestry
business might have had some influence on her interest and skill
in art. Many of her paintings were indeed copied into tapestries by
the Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins.[4] Since her childhood
was spent in the factory, she had the opportunity to experience the
entire operation of the business.[5] In 1754, her father moved the
family to Paris. Vallayer-Coster seems not to have entered the
studio of a professional painter, possibly because such an
apprenticeship to an unrelated male was difficult for a respectable
woman. Like other women artists of the time, she was effectively
trained by her father; but also learned from other sources including
the botanical specialist Madeleine Basseport, and the celebrated
marine painter Joseph Vernet.[6]
By the age of twenty-six, Vallayer-Coster was still without a name
or a sponsor; this proved to be a worrisome issue for her.
[3] Reluctantly, she submitted two of her still lifes—The Attributes
of Painting and The Attributes of Music (both now in the holdings
of the Louvre)[6]—to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de
Sculpture, as reception pieces in 1770.[7] She was unanimously
elected into the Royal Académie once the Academicians saw her
paintings, making her one of only fourteen women accepted into
the Académie before the French Revolution.[8] This moment of
success however, was overshadowed by the death of her father.
Immediately her mother took over the family business, quite
commonly the case during this time, and Anne continued to work
to help support her family.[7]
Along with her Attributes of Painting, Sculpture, and
Architecture and Attributes of Music paintings, nine more of
Vallayer-Coster's paintings, some of which had previously been
submitted to the academicians, were displayed in the Salon exhibit
of 1771.[9] Commenting on the Salon exhibit of 1771, the
encyclopedist Denis Diderot noted that "if all new members of the
Royal Academy made a showing like Mademoiselle Vallayer's, and
sustained the same high level of quality, the Salon would look very
different!"[1] Though she is known for still life paintings in this
period, she is also known for portraits, and her 1773 Portrait of a
Violinist was purchased by the Nationalmuseum in 2015.