Masterpiece Story: Still Life with Flowers in an Alabaster Vase and Fruit by Anne Vallayer-Coster

Historical Context

Anne Vallayer-Coster (1744–1818) was the most famous female still-life artist in France during the last two decades of the ancien régime (1770s and 1780s). Many critics, including the famous Denis Diderot, said she was the finest still-life painter in France since Jean Siméon Chardin (1699–1779). Vallayer-Coster later earned a coveted position as a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1770 at the remarkable age of 26. At the time, she was the fourth and final female member to be accepted into the male-dominated academy. Shortly after, she was made the official still-life court painter to Queen Marie Antoinette.

Later, in 1783, during the peak of her career, Anne Vallayer-Coster created Still Life with Flowers in an Alabaster Vase and Fruit. It is a masterpiece of still-life painting with its fresh colors, fine details, and harmonious composition. Vallayer-Coster presented it at the Paris Salon of 1783 as painting No. 77, where it was an instant triumph.

Many prestigious buyers and collectors offered to acquire the painting, but Vallayer-Coster refused. She claimed that it was her life’s best work and, financially, she did not need to sell it. Therefore, until her death in 1818, Vallayer-Coster kept the painting displayed in her studio as a showpiece of her skill to potential clients.

Still-Life

Still Life with Flowers in an Alabaster Vase and Fruit is a large oil on canvas measuring 108.5 x 89.5 cm (42 11/16 x 35 1/4 in.). The image is a still life, which is a genre of painting that specializes in arrangements of inanimate objects. The variety of objects included in a still-life painting is only limited by the painter’s imagination or financial resources. Almost any portable object can be the subject of a still life. Therefore, many successful still-life artists focus on a small set of objects to explore, master, and ultimately create a signature style. With Anne Vallayer-Coster, her signature style was fruits and flowers.

Signature Style

Still Life with Flowers in an Alabaster Vase and Fruit is a perfect example of Anne Vallayer-Coster’s signature style, as a large bouquet of flowers sits inside an alabaster vase with bronze mountings. The vase sits on a marble-and-wood table alongside grapes, a pineapple, and four peaches. A dark brown wall provides a solid monochrome background to the delicate polychrome foreground.

The overall effect is reminiscent of famous Northern artists such as Rachel Ruysch and Jan Davidsz de Heem, but Vallayer-Coster’s scenes are lighter, brighter, and more airy. Vallayer-Coster’s style reflects the late 18th-century French ideals of naturalism and delicacy.

Flowers

Dominating the scene is a large display of flowers. Ten different flower species create an opulent bouquet of bluebells, carnations, dahlias, hollyhocks, hydrangeas, irises, lilacs, poppies, roses, and tulips. Every flower is painted at its peak of freshness creating a delicate rainbow of shapes and colors.

Vase à l’antique

The flowers sit inside an antique-looking pale alabaster vase. This vase à l’antique is adorned by gilt-bronze mounts of a child satyr (a half-man, half-goat Roman woodland god) on the left, a floral garland in the middle, and a goat’s head on the right. The vase’s coloring showcases Vallayer-Coster’s ability to render warm and reflective surfaces contrasting against the flowers’ cool delicacy.

Louis XVI Table

Supporting the entire scene is a Louis XVI table. It has Neoclassical features, popular under King Louis XVI of France, such as a white marble top, a mahogany base, cabriole legs, and gilt edging. The marble table top has a polished surface that mirrors and bounces light emanating from the painting’s upper left corner.

Grapes

On the table’s left is a bunch of pale green grapes similar to the ones used to make champagne. They are symbolic of the joys of wine but also the fragility of time. Grapes quickly perish, and so does human life. Therefore, while the firm plump texture of the grapes adds visual interest, they also add a symbolic message.

Pineapple

To the right of the vase is a deliciously ripe pineapple. Its leafy crown overhangs the tabletop and points towards the viewer. The spiky leaves of the pineapple crown are rendered beautifully with the many shadows and folds of the complex structure. The pineapple body is conveyed equally with its prickly surface and rough texture. Pineapples were a luxury product in 18th-century France. They had to be imported from the tropical islands of the French Caribbean or grown in greenhouses in mainland France. Either way, they were rare and expensive to obtain. Therefore, owning or tasting a pineapple was a luxury status symbol. Hence, Anne Vallayer-Coster places a tropical fruit into the scene to add an exotic and intriguing visual element to the scene.

Peaches

To the right of the pineapple is a small arrangement of four peaches. The fourth peach can barely be seen behind the three frontal peaches, but its presence is marked by the lack of shadow between the two frontal base peaches. The four peaches form a small pyramid, which creates stability in the composition but also offers visual movement as the viewer’s eyes move around the triangular shape. The peach pyramid has a downy peel that further increases the number of textures and surfaces found throughout the still-life.

Rediscovery

Still Life with Flowers in an Alabaster Vase and Fruit is Anne Vallayer-Coster’s recently rediscovered masterpiece. Its existence was documented in records from the Paris Salon of 1783 and from its first sale in 1824, but afterwards, its survival and location were doubted and unknown. It was not until 2022 that it reappeared at the Christie’s Paris showroom in preparation for Auction 20692, held on June 15, 2023. The art world was in shock and disbelief! Where had this masterpiece been hidden for almost 200 years?

From the death of Anne Vallayer-Coster in 1818, it was held by her surviving husband, Jean-Pierre-Silvestre Coster. Then, upon his death in 1824, it was sold to another member of the Coster family. The painting then descended the family line through multiple inheritances. In the 1940s, it was sold by the Coster family to a small private art dealer in east France and later bought by another family and held in possession in Nancy, France, until 2023.

When the painting was evaluated, it was estimated to sell at a price between €600,000 and €1,000,000. Its final sale was spectacular! It sold for €2,581,000 ($2.8 million) and was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, USA. Now, Vallayer-Coster’s masterpiece, the image she considered her life’s best work, is on public display with free admission for anyone to view. What a glorious fate and amazing journey for one of the most beautiful still lifes of all time.