Vase of Flowers and Conch Shell
{{Short description|1780 painting by Anne Vallayer-Coster}}
{{Infobox artwork/wikidata|qid=Q19905269|image_size=250px}}
Vase of Flowers and Conch Shell is a painting by Anne Vallayer-Coster, from 1780. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.{{cite web|title=Vase of Flowers and Conch Shell|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437864}}
Early history and creation
In 1770, Vallayer-Coster joined the French Academy. Marie Antoinette was her patron.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uAnFQgAACAAJ&q=Vase+of+Flowers+and+Conch+Shell+vallayer|title=Anne Vallayer-Coster, Painter to the Court of Marie-Antoinette|last1=Kahng|first1=Eik|last2=Vallayer-Coster|first2=Anne|last3=Michel|first3=Marianne Roland|last4=Bailey|first4=Colin B.|date=2002|publisher=Dallas Museum of Art|isbn=9780300093292|language=en}}
The painting was exhibited in the Salon of 1781.{{cite web|url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/07.225.504/|title=Vase of Flowers and Conch Shell - Anne Vallayer-Coster - 07.225.504 - Work of Art - Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |website=The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History}} Vallayer had started to show her flower paintings at the Salon of 1775. Denis Diderot, who had been enthusiastic about her work in the Salon of 1771,{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/2002/07/07/the-modest-bloom-of-anne-vallayer-coster/cbef15f8-79db-4dd8-9412-ccac5e5a6f56/|title=The Modest Bloom of Anne Vallayer-Coster|last=Lewis|first=Jo Ann|date=2002-07-07|newspaper=Washington Post|access-date=2018-03-24|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286}} gave a very different assessment in 1781 and writes of the small oval paintings of flowers and fruits that they lack the skill in drawing and brush that this type of painting requires.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oJYNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA47|title=Oeuvres complètes de Diderot: Beaux-arts, pt. 3: Arts du dessin (salons). Musique|last=Diderot|first=Denis|date=1876|publisher=Garnier|language=fr}}
The painting is executed in a mix of styles, with both very fine and broad brushstrokes. Eik Kahng, in an essay comparing Vallayer-Coster's technique to Chardin's notes that the level of detail in the flowers is "almost clinically precise", but the conch shell is painted with broad unblended brush strokes.{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/48711419|title=Anne Vallayer-Coster, painter to the court of Marie-Antoinette|last1=Kahng|first1=Eik|last2=Vallayer-Coster|first2=Anne|last3=Roland Michel|first3=Marianne|last4=Bailey|first4=Colin B|date=2002|publisher=Dallas Museum of Art; Yale University Press|isbn=0300093292|location=Dallas, TX]; New Haven|oclc=48711419|language=en}} Valerie Mainz, in an essay in the Dictionary of Women Artists, refers to the painting as an example of a proto-impressionist technique, resembling the use of pastel, that prefigures the flower paintings of Henri-Fantin-Latour.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6_0Y0PALzQMC|title=Dictionary of Women Artists: Artists, J-Z|last=Gaze|first=Delia|date=1997|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=9781884964213|language=en}}
Later history and display
It was given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, by J. Pierpont Morgan in 1906.{{cite web|url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437864|title=Anne Vallayer-Coster - Vase of Flowers and Conch Shell - The Met|website=The Metropolitan Museum of Art}}
References
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Category:Paintings by Anne Vallayer-Coster