Anne Vallayer-Coster was a major 18th-century French painter best known for still lifes. 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.
Portrait of Anne Vallayer-Coster by Alexander Roslin (1783), Crocker Art Museum
Anne Vallayer-Coster, Portrait of a Violinist, 1773
Anne Vallayer-Coster, Vase, Lobster, Fruits, and Game, 1817
Queen Marie-Antoinette (1780)
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural or human-made.
Juan Sánchez Cotán, Still Life with Game Fowl, Vegetables and Fruits (1602), Museo del Prado, Madrid
Still life on a 2nd-century mosaic, with fish, poultry, dates and vegetables from the Vatican museum
Glass bowl of fruit and vases. Roman wall painting in Pompeii (around 70 AD), Naples National Archaeological Museum, Naples, Italy
Hans Memling (1430–1494), Vase of Flowers (1480), Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. According to some scholars the Vase of Flowers is filled with religious symbolism.