Natureza Morta Flores em um Vaso (Still Life of Flowers in a Vase on a Table Beside a Bust of Flora, with Fruit and Other Objects with a Curtain Beyond) - Anne Vallayer-Coster

Natureza Morta Flores em um Vaso (Still Life of Flowers in a Vase on a Table Beside a Bust of Flora, with Fruit and Other Objects with a Curtain Beyond) - Anne Vallayer-Coster
Coleção privada
OST - 154x130 - 1774


This masterpiece by Anne Vallayer-Coster is one of the most important works by the artist remaining in private hands. Painted with great variance of textures and a brilliant sense of color, the grand yet intimate still life was exhibited at the Salon of 1775, when the artist was at the height of her powers and creating some of her most important floral still lifes. The painting, along with its pendant depicting The Attributes of Hunting and Gardening, was originally commissioned by the abbé Joseph Marie Terray, then the directuer-général des Bâtiments under Louis XV; more recently it was included in the seminal exhibition Women Artists: 1550-1950, held at the Los Angeles County Museum in 1976.
Vallayer has daringly composed a monumental display of colorful, dazzling flowers in a wide range of forms and carefully painted textures, creating an explosion of color at the center of the canvas, which is otherwise subtly lit. The large blue porcelain vase sits on a contemporary wooden table, along with a few ripe peaches, pears and plums. Grape vines bearing fruit decorate the table as well and hang over the front edge, pulling the viewer into the compositional space. Tucked behind the vase is an elegant marble bust of Flora, adding a feminine element to the painting, as well as a red Moroccan leather portfolio and some books. A dark curtain is pulled back behind the still life, with marble columns seen in the distance. Though Vallayer's oeuvre exhibits a debt to Chardin's still lifes in the soft, subtle lighting technique and overall quietness, it is canvases such as this magnificent example that clearly break out of Chardin's restrained color palette in a new and empowering tone.
Anne Vallayer-Coster, along with Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, was one of the three reigning female artists in late 18th century Paris during the age of Marie-Antoinette. Though all three had very different careers, they were each extremely successful artists during the time, overcoming a complicated entry process into the Académie royale de peinture et sculpture as women and growing extensive networks of patrons in the royal court and beyond.
Vallayer was reçue as a full member of the Académie on July 28, 1770 at the age of only twenty-six. Her acceptance into the Académie garnered considerable attention including an announcement of the event in the Mercure de France of September 1770 which stated that she had been received as a full member on the basis of "paintings in the genre of flowers, bas-reliefs, animals [that] were the best recommendation of her talent."
When Vallayer first exhibited at the Salon in 1771, her canvases, including a still life of sea-shells and coral, were praised by the critics. Indeed, Diderot himself exclaimed that “Il est certain que si tous les récipiendaires se présentaient comme Mademoiselle Vallayer et s’y soutenaient avec autant d’égalité, le Sallon serait autrement meublé.” (“It is certain that if all new members made a showing like Mademoiselle Vallayer’s, and sustained the same high level of quality there, the Salon would look very different.”). When the present work and its pendant were exhibited at the Salon of 1775, Vallayer was admired for painting "like a talented man."
Named painter to Marie Antoinette in 1780, Vallayer moved into the apartments in the Louvre in 1781. Though her career suffered during the French Revolution due to her connections with the monarchy, Vallayer would continue to exhibit at the Salon until 1817. Though now known primarily for her floral still lifes, Vallayer-Coster did not exhibit one until 1772, and even later they did not number higher than the other subjects she produced.
The Abbé Joseph Marie Terray served as the directeur-général des Bâtiments under Louis XV. Though known for his rather parsimonious rule over royal spending, he did support a number of projects for the arts, including the restoration of the grande galerie at the Louvre in 1774, and he notably allowed the comtesse du Barry to build and extravagantly furnish Louveciennes. Though he was not a collector of art for the majority of his life, the Abbé began commissioning sculpture and paintings from contemporary artists with enthusiasm in the 1770s, including a series of marble sculptures by Clodion, Tassaert, and Lecomte, along with large-scale pairs of paintings by Claude-Joseph Vernet and Nicolas Lépicié. Interestingly, many of these paintings, including the present one and its pendant, had connections back to the nation's agriculture, trade and farming.