Anne Vallayer Coster: Painter to the Court of Marie Antoinette

by Eik Kahng, Anne Vallayer-Coster, Marianne Roland Michel

Anne Vallayer-Coster (1744-1818) was one of the most talented still-life painters of the French school. Her exquisite paintings, today located in some of the world's finest museums, were admired and collected by many of her contemporaries, including Marie Antoinette, who became the artist's most important patron. This lavishly illustrated book, the first devoted to Vallayer-Coster in over 30 years, presents a stunning array of the artist's still-life works, many of which have never before been reproduced in color. Recently rediscovered works, including three royal portraits from the collection of Versailles and a hitherto unknown pastel of Marie Antoinette, are published here for the first time. The authors draw on the most current research to examine Vallayer-Coster's relationship with landscape painter Joseph Vernet; her response to her immediate predecessor, still-life painter Jean-Siméon Chardin; her role with contemporary collectors of her art; and her place in the larger context of the eighteenth-century art world. The book also includes new archival and conservation findings and an illustrated index of extant paintings by Vallayer-Coster.

Genres: Nonfiction

336 pages, Hardcover

First published June 10, 2002

About the author

Eik Kahng is deputy director and chief curator at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Reviews

[Pholsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

The scholarship is dense but easily engaging; each topic is presented with a range of interesting details, some quite unexpected, like her marriage contract which involved a number of court notables--Marie Antoinette being one, and the financial contributions Anne was able to render based on her successful career. The color plates are generous, the mastery evident, and the triumph of Anne being even accepted into the Academy and then becoming a court painter is fully explained in this book.