Brief Biography-Anne Vallayer-Coster, the daughter of a goldsmith in the Gobelins, was born in 1744. She is renowned for her still-life paintings, but she did engage in portraiture and genre scenes. She was primarily self-taught except for some tuition from Claude Joseph Vernet. In 1770, she entered the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture and soon received patronage from Marie Antoinette for her still-lifes. Her career waned somewhat with the advent of the revolution; however, she managed to survive and work on to the ripe age of seventy-three.