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Anne Vallayer-Coster: Painter to the Court of Marie Antoinette

June 30 – September 22, 2002
West Building, Main Floor, Galleries 72, 73, 74

Jean Siméon Chardin, Still Life with Game, probably 1750s, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.36

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Overview: In this first retrospective of the work of 18th-century French painter Anne Vallayer-Coster, 42 paintings were presented. The exhibition included examples of the artist's arrangements of bouquets, flower studies, other still life arrangements, miniatures, trompe l'oeil imitations of sculptural reliefs, and portraits. 6 paintings by contemporary artists, including Jean Siéon Chardin and Henri-Horace Roland Delaporte, and a roll-top desk of the period by Jean-Henri Riesener from the Widener Collection of the National Gallery of Art were also included in the exhibition.

Organization: The exhibition was organized by the Dallas Museum of Art. Eik Kahng, formerly with the Dallas Museum of Art, was the exhibition curator.

Sponsor: The exhibition was supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Attendance: 72,417

Catalog: Anne Vallayer-Coster: Painter to the Court of Marie Antoinette, by Eik Kahng and Marianne Roland Michel, with contributions from Colin B. Bailey, Claire Barry, Laurent Hugues, and Melissa Hyde. New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the Dallas Museum of Art, 2002.

Other Venues: Dallas Museum of Art, October 13, 2002–January 13, 2003
Frick Collection, New York, January 21–March 23, 2003

Vallayer-Coster, Anne
French, 1744 - 1818