![Anne Vallayer-Coster - Musical Instruments [1770]](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8630/15261873234_5ef9a33fd3_o.jpg)
Anne Vallayer-Coster is one of the few 18th-century women to have created a successful career for herself, and achieved recognition, as an artist. She was the daughter of a goldsmith and miniaturist from whom she received her initial training before subsequently entering the studio of the marine and landscape painter Claude-Joseph Vernet. In 1770, thanks to her considerable talent, the young artist won the right to study for a year at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris. Women were generally denied the opportunity to study art, but it may have been this still-life with the attributes of the arts that persuaded the jury to make an exception in the case of Anne Vallayer-Coster and admit her.
[Musée du Louvre, Paris - Oil on canvas, 88 x 116 cm]