New Book Reevaluates the Sensuous Still Lifes of Anne Vallayer-Coster

Anne Vallayer-Coster (1744–1818) was 25 years old when she was accepted into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture) in Paris in July 1770–one of only 15 women artists admitted to the Académie in its history.

Her bold, complex and sensual still-life paintings elicited ample praise from critics, and she eventually earned the patronage of Queen Marie Antoinette and other members of the French court.

Despite her professional success, Vallayer-Coster has received relatively little scholarly attention. This is due in part to her subject matter: she primarily painted still lifes, which received far less critical attention in the eighteenth century and beyond. In Anne Vallayer-Coster (Getty Publications, $45), the first English-language monograph dedicated to Vallayer-Coster in over 20 years, author Kelsey Brosnan rectifies this omission by closely examining the artist’s still-life paintings. Brosnan’s analysis provides a fresh feminist reevaluation of Vallayer-Coster, situating her alongside contemporaries such as Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, and Jean-Siméon Chardin. Anne Vallayer-Coster is an astute, accessible introduction to the artist that offers a new framework for experiencing the visceral qualities of her paintings.

Anne Vallayer-Coster is the most recent title in the “Illuminating Women Artists” published in partnership with UK-based publisher Lund Humphries. This series of beautifully illustrated books is the first to focus in a deliberate and sustained way on women artists throughout history, to recognize their accomplishments, to revive their name recognition, and to make their works better known to art enthusiasts of the 21st century.