Anne Valayer-Coster, Still Life With Round Bottle, 1770

After the Renaissance, art shifted in focus from exclusively religious topics to a growing tolerance of  more mundane subjects, especially in still lifes. Though still not as important as religious works and generally considered the lowest form of art, still life paintings were enjoyed by the growing middle class and merchants. Only once photography was invented and made complete realism unnecessary did artists begin to experiment with still lifes and elevate them to the level of other art forms, as part of the 19th century Impressionism movement.

This piece, Still Life With Round Bottle, was painted by Anne Valayer-Coster, a late 18th century French artist about whom little is known. She painted mostly still lifes, showing great skill even at an early age with her paintings of flowers. At this time, society resisted the idea of a woman moving in the public sphere, but Valayer-Coster persevered and became one of only four women accepted into the Royal Académie des Beaux-Arts before the French Revolution.

The painting itself, simple and unpretentious in comparison with others of its time, carries no overt religious or moralistic meaning. However, the goblet of wine and the bread are symbols of the Eucharist. A common form of still life was the vanitas, where symbols of death and mortality were included to remind the viewer that they would not live forever. The more common symbols, such as skulls, hourglasses, and candles, are absent, but the fruit and bread will eventually rot away. Valayer-Coster captured a moment in time, down to the imperfections of the bread's crust and the reflections on the glass, in a comfortable, domestic scene.