Anne Vallayer-Coster (1744–1818)

• Was an 18th-century French painter.
• She is best known for still lifes.
• She being admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1770, at the age of twenty-six.
• Vallayer-Coster’s highly developed skills, especially in the depiction of flowers, soon generated a great deal of attention from collectors and other artists.
• Marie Antoinette took a particular interest in Vallayer-Coster's paintings.
• Her life was determinedly private, dignified and hard-working.
• She survived the bloodshed of the Reign of Terror, 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.
• She died in 1818 at the age of seventy-three.
• She painted more than 120 still lifes.
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