Élisabeth vigée lebrun facts
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Vallayer-Coster, Anne (1744–1818)
French still-life painter who was the first woman to become a member of France's Royal Academy. Name variations: Anna Vallayer-Coster. Born Anne Vallayer in France in 1744; died in 1818; daughter of a goldsmith; married Jean Pierre Coster (a lawyer), in 1781.
Anne Vallayer was born in 1744 and grew up in Gobelins, France, the daughter of a goldsmith who worked for the local tapestry factory. When she was ten, the family moved to Paris where her father opened his own shop. Upon his death, her mother continued to run the Paris workshop.
Little is known of the art training or earliest work of Anne Vallayer-Coster. Though Gabriel de Saint-Aubin was a family friend, it is doubtful that he ever became her teacher, and her first known painting was a portrait executed in 1762. Eight years later, in 1770, the 26-year-old Anne submitted her Allegory of the Visual Arts and Allegory of Music (now in the Louvre, Paris) to the Académie Royale and was unanimously elected a member. Denis Diderot admired her work, as did Royal Academy voting member Jea
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“Mlle Vallayer astonishes us as much as she enchants us … no one of the French school can rival the strength of [her] colors … nor her uncomplicated surface finish. She preserves the freshness of tone and a beautiful harmony throughout the canvas. What a success at this age!” — Diderot, 1771
Still Life with Round Bottle (1770)
Dear friends and readers,
The above Still Life with Round Bottle appears to be considerably less well-known than the familiar (found all over the Internet and in most surveys of women painters)
White Tureen (1771),
so I placed the wine bottle (with its nearby realistically textured aka yummy bread and Mackintosh like sharp-sour tasting apple, home-made jam [?] and simple glass of wine) before the soup bowl (an essay in levels of white and light, against dark purply wines, richer succulent bread and greys above).
They both merit the adjectives used frequently of Anne Vallayer-Coster’s art: chaste, cool, elegant, a quiet order, reverent sensuality, earthiness contained.
Remembering the remark that prompted J
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Anne Vallayer-Coster
French artist (1744–1818)
Anne Vallayer-Coster (21 December 1744 – 28 February 1818) was a major 18th-century French painter best known for still lifes. She achieved fame and recognition very early in her career, being admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1770, at the age of twenty-six.[1]
Despite the low status that still life painting had at this time, Vallayer-Coster's highly developed skills, especially in the depiction of flowers, soon generated a great deal of attention from collectors and other artists.[1] Her "precocious talent and the rave reviews" earned her the attention of the court, where Marie Antoinette took a particular interest in Vallayer-Coster's paintings.[1]
Her life was determinedly private, dignified and hard-working. She survived the bloodshed of the Reign of Terror,[2] 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 o
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