Anne VALLAYER-COSTER (Paris 1744 - 1818) - Lot 42

Anne VALLAYER-COSTER (Paris 1744 - 1818) Still life with hare, carnier, powder flask, fruit basket and bottle on a stone table Oval canvas Signed on the right "vallayer coster". 66 x 54 cm Provenance : - Sale from the collection of Baron de Beurnonville, Paris, Hôtel Drouot (Maître Pillet), May 9, 1881, no. 179 (400 francs) ; - Anonymous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot (Tajan), December 12, 1995, no. 112. Bibliography: - M. Roland Michel, Anne Vallayer-Coster 1744-1818, Paris, 1970, no. 296 (as lost); - Exhibition catalog, Anne Vallayer-Coster: peintre à la Cour de Marie-Antoinette, (ed. Kahng Eik), Washington, National Gallery of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, New-York, The Frick Collection, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille, 2002-2003, Marseille Paris, 2003, n°127, reproduced p. 217. Anne Vallayer was admitted to the Académie Royale de peinture et de sculpture on July 28, 1770 as a still-life painter. She exhibited at the Salons, where critics, including Diderot, were dithyrambic. She soon began to paint figures and portraits on a more occasional basis, and became part of Marie-Antoinette's inner circle, obtaining lodgings at the Louvre. In 1781, she married Jean-Pierre Sylvestre Coster, a lawyer at Parliament and Receiver General. Along with Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, she was one of the few female painters to make a name for herself during the reign of Louis XVI. A painter of flower bouquets, Anne Vallayer-Coster also executed several hunting still lifes. Our composition is reminiscent of Chardin in the vibrant fur of the hare, the velvety texture of the fruit basket and the carafe, so present in his work. The details and quality of finish are characteristic of our painter. Note the geometric construction of this hunting scene, suggested by the cross-shaped axis given by the entablature and the rifle. This geometric structure is softened, however, by the blue ribbon and the oval shape of the powder flask and fruit.