"[Vallayer-Coster] is no recorder of specimens, charting every petal and st.mes n... Her vases of blooms are always impressionistic masses of color: Some of her small, spontaneous studies of roses come uncannily close to those of Manet, painted a century later."
- Ann Sutherland-Harris, in Women Artists: 1550-1950 [1]

This painting was in the collects ion of miniaturist Louis Cournerie (1820-c. 1891), whose estate sale included 27 paintings by the artist. Along with the present work, the sale included the oval floral still life previously in the collects ion of J.P. Morgan and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art2 along with the magnificent pair of still lifes currently in the Dallas Museum of Art (figs. 1 and 2).

left: Fig. 1. Anne Vallayer-Coster, italicized: Bouquet of flowers in a terracotta vase with peaches and grapes, oil on canvas, Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art, inv. no. 1998.51.FA

right: Fig. 2. Anne Vallayer-Coster, italicized: Bouquet of flowers in a blue porcelain vase, oil on canvas, Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art, inv. no. 1998.52.FA

For further biographical information on the artist, see lot 50.

1. A. Sutherland Harris and L. Noghlin, Women Artists: 1550-1950, exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles 1976, p. 182.

2. Vallayer-Coster, Vase of Flowers and Conch Shell, 1780, oil on oval canvas, 19 3/4 x 15 in. (50.2 x 38.1 cm), New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 07.225.504