Anne Vallayer-Coster (December 21, 1744 – February 28, 1818) was an 18th-century French painter. Known as a prodigy artist at a young age, 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.
Despite the negative reputation 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. 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.
Regardless of her closeness to the ancient régime and France's hated monarch she survived the bloodshed of the French Revolution. However, the fall of the French monarchy, which were her primary patrons, caused her banishment into the shadows.
Anne Vallayer-Coster was a woman in a man’s world. It is unknown what she thought of contemporaries who admitted her to the confraternity, and made her an honorary ‘man’. Her life was determinedly private, dignified and hard-working. Occasionally she attempted other genres, but for the usual reasons her success at figure painting was limited.
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