Anne Valayer-Coster

Anne Vallayer-Coster was born in Paris, France in 1744, into an artistic family; her mother painted miniatures and her father Joseph Vallayer was a master goldsmith. She was an 18th-century French painter best known for still lifes. She was admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1770 at the young age of twenty-six; only four women artists were admitted to the Académie at the time. She exhibited her still lifes in the Salon regularly from 1771 until 1817. In 1780 she was named painter to queen Marie Antoinette. Her career suffered during the French Revolution due to her close association with Marie Antionette; however she continued exhibiting at the Salon until the year before her death in 1818.