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Lot Essay
Received as an academician in 1770, Anne Vallayer-Coster exhibited regularly and with great success at the annual Salons from 1771 to 1817, the year before her death. The present still life -- which is one of the most refined and delicately preserved of her works -- is dated 1781, the same year that she married Jean-Pierre-Sylvestre Coster, a wealthy lawyer and member of Parliament. Although it is signed 'Vallayer Coster', its frame -- which is the original giltwood frame made for the painting -- carries an inscription in pen bearing just her maiden name, the only name under which she exhibited throughout her career.
Vallayer-Coster's father had been a goldsmith who worked for the Gobelins tapestry manufactory, and she became familiar with the whole range of its artistic activities. In her maturity, she provided designs for the factory, and the present painting served as the model for two tapestries. One of the weavings (formerly in the collection of Mme. Andr Loyer) carries a woven signature and the date 1781 (Roland Michel, op. cit., 429, p. 114, illustrated); the other seems to date from circa 1803 and survives in the Muse Nissim de Camondo, Paris (Roland Michel, no. 431, p. 248, illustrated).
The painting is in the original giltwood frame.
Vallayer-Coster's father had been a goldsmith who worked for the Gobelins tapestry manufactory, and she became familiar with the whole range of its artistic activities. In her maturity, she provided designs for the factory, and the present painting served as the model for two tapestries. One of the weavings (formerly in the collection of Mme. Andr Loyer) carries a woven signature and the date 1781 (Roland Michel, op. cit., 429, p. 114, illustrated); the other seems to date from circa 1803 and survives in the Muse Nissim de Camondo, Paris (Roland Michel, no. 431, p. 248, illustrated).
The painting is in the original giltwood frame.