Social Sharing

Still Life with Plums and a Lemon

1778

Painted with rapt attention, this still life encourages us to savor its contents: a basket of ripe plums, a gleaming glass of water, a citrus fruit half peeled, revealing white pulp and transparent flesh. Anne Vallayer-Coster was among the foremost still-life painters in eighteenth-century France. In 1770, she secured one of four seats open to women in the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and thereafter showed her work in the Academy’s biannual exhibition known as the Salon. This picture may have hung there in 1779, where one critic remarked of her submissions: “It would be impossible to create a greater illusion.”

Artist: Anne Vallayer-Coster
Title: Still Life with Plums and a Lemon
Date: 1778
Place of Creation: France
Object Type: Painting
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 16 3/8 x 18 5/8 in. (41.6 x 47.3 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Louis A. Benoist
Accession Number: 1960.30

Possibly in the Salon of 1779, no. 105 (though dimensions listed there as 13 ✕ 15 pouces [ca. 35 ✕ 40 cm]).

1975, San Francisco. California Palace of the Legion of Honor. "Women Artists: Review and Recognition," 11 October - 25 December, no catalog.

1976-1977, Los Angeles-Austin-Pittsburgh-New York. “Women Artists 1550-1950.” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 21 December 1976 - 13 March 1977; Austin, The University of Texas, University Art Museum, 12 April - 5 June 1977; Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, 14 July - 4 September 1977; New York, The Brooklyn Museum, 4 October - 27 November 1977, no. 55, repr.

1978-1979, Denver-New York-Minneapolis. “Masterpieces of French Art: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.” Denver Art Museum, 26 December 1978 - 18 February 1979; New York, Wildenstein & Co., Inc., 14 March - 27 April 1979; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 24 May - 1 July 1979, no. 38.

1998, "A Feast for the Eye."
Marianne Roland Michel. Anne Vallayer-Coster 1744-1818. Paris: Comptoir International du Livre, 1970, p. 145, no. 138, repr. on 144.

Marianne Roland Michel. "Basket of Plums." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60 (February 1973): p. 57.

Emile de la Chavignerie Bellier and Louis Auvray. Dictionnaire général des artistes de l’Ecole française depuis l’origine des arts du dessin jusqu'à nos jours. 2 vols. 1882-1885. Reprint, ed. Robert Rosenblum. 5 vols. New York: Garland Publishing, 1979, 4:295.

Thomas P. Lee. "Recently Acquired French Paintings: Reflections on the Past." Apollo 111, no. 217 (March 1980): p. 222, fig. 19 on 221.

Pierre Rosenberg and Marion C. Stewart. French Paintings 1500-1825: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. San Francisco: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1987, pp. 284-287, repr.

de Young

Legion of Honor

de Young

Legion of Honor

Still Life with Plums and a Lemon

Currently on view

Woman holding a swan, mid 4th century BC

Composition of Right Foot, 19th-20th century

Pipe Organ, 1924

New acquisitions

The Little Eugène de Montesquiou-Fézensac Asleep, 1783

Motif pour tenue de reine, 2023

Woman's ensemble: dress (a) and bracelet (b), ca. 1920

Portrait of Bianca degli Utili Maselli and Her Children, ca. 1604-5

Portrait of a Youth through time, 2022

de Young

Legion of Honor

de Young

Legion of Honor

Social Sharing

Provenance

Exhibition History

Bibliography

Woman holding a swan, mid 4th century BC

Composition of Right Foot, 19th-20th century

Pipe Organ, 1924

The Little Eugène de Montesquiou-Fézensac Asleep, 1783

Motif pour tenue de reine, 2023

Woman's ensemble: dress (a) and bracelet (b), ca. 1920

Portrait of Bianca degli Utili Maselli and Her Children, ca. 1604-5

Portrait of a Youth through time, 2022