Still Life with Lobster

Artist Anne Vallayer-Coster (French, 1744-1818)

Place of OriginFrance

Date1781

DimensionsPainting: 27 3/4 × 35 1/4 in. (70.5 × 89.5 cm)
Frame: 35 3/4 × 43 × 2 1/2 in. (90.8 × 109.2 × 6.4 cm)

MediumOil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1968.1A

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 27

Label TextOne of only four women to be admitted to the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture before the French Revolution, Anne Vallayer-Coster was an accomplished and successful painter with the patronage of Queen Marie-Antoinette. This canvas was painted the year after Vallayer-Coster was appointed a painter to the queen and the year she was married to wealthy lawyer Jean-Pierre Coster (the marriage contract was signed by Marie-Antoinette herself as a witness). Vallayer-Coster was best known for her still life paintings. Here she depicts a bright red, cooked lobster on a white cloth in front of a luxury silver soup tureen. Rounds of bread, a basket of grapes, a covered glass jar, a silver bowl of salt, and two glass and gilded cruets (vessels for oil or vinegar) round out the tabletop display. Look closely at the reflection in the tureen—it seems to reveal the artist’s studio window and the artist herself painting at her easel.Published ReferencesMS estate inventory of Jean Girardot de Marigny (Minutier Central, L/802, 23 Germinal an IV)

Bellier de la Chavignerie, E., Les artistes francais du XVIIIe oubliés ou méprisés, Paris, 1865 (incorrectly as Salon of 1783).

Michel, M. R., "A propos d'un tableau retrouve de Vallayer-Coster," Bulletin de la société de l'histoire de l'art francais, 1965, p. 186.

"La Chronique des Arts," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. 73, no. 296, Feb. 1969, p. 71, repr.

"Accessions..." Art Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 2, Autumn 1969, p. 332.

"Treasures for Toledo," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 12, no. 4, Winter 1969, repr.

"La Chronique des Arts," Gazette des Beaux Arts, vol. 75, no. 1214, March 1970, p. 3.

Davidson, Ruth, "Museum Accessions: Toledo's Treasures," Antiques, vol. 97, no. 3, March 1970, p. 353, repr.

Michel, M. R., Anne Vallayer-Coster, 1744-1818, Paris, 1970, no. 226.

Romand, Didier, "La Cote des peintures, Anne Vallayer-Coster/1744-1818," Gazette de L'Hotel Drouot, vol. 82, no. 38, Nov. 9, 1973, p. 19.

The Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, pp. 161-162, pl. 206.

Baillio, Joseph, "French Rococo Painting: A Notable Exhibition in Atlanta," Apollo, vol. 119, no. 263, Jan. 1984, p. 23, repr. fig. 13.

Chadwick, Whitney, Women, Art, and Society, London, 1990, p. 149, pl. 75 (col.).

Sayre, Henry M., A World of Art, Englewood Cliffs, 1994, p. 149, fig. 201 (col.).

Marquart-Cherry, Janet, Objects of Personal Significance, Kansas City, MO, 1996, repr. p. 15, (col.).

Bailey, Colin B., Patriotic Taste: Collecting Modern Art in Pre-Revolutionary Paris, New Haven, Yale, 2002, pp. 160, 288, n. 155, 158, pl. 142, p. 159.

Sayre, Henry M., A World of Art, 4th ed., Upper Saddle River, Prentice Hall, 2003, pp. 168-169, fig. 236 (col.).

Exhibition HistoryParis, Salon de la Correspondence, 1782 (as Nature morte au homard).

Atlanta, High Museum of Art, The Rococo Age: French Masterpieces of the Eighteenth Century, 1983, no. 61, pp. 135-136, repr. (col.), p. 127.

Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; New York, the Frick Collection; Marseilles, France, Centre de la Vielle de Charité, Anne Vallayer-Coster: Painter to the Court of Marie-Antoinette, 2002-2003, no. 65, pp. 52, 69, 96, 100, 106, 107, 111, pl. 33 (col.), repr. p. 52 (det., col.) , p. 207.

Baltimore, MD, Baltimore Museum of Art; Toronto, Ontario, Art Gallery of Ontario, Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800, Oct. 1, 2023 - July 1, 2024.