This winter, New York audiences will have the opportunity to view the first retrospective of one of the foremost still-life painters in eighteenth-century France, Anne Vallayer-Coster (1744–1818), whose works were celebrated by the critics and collected by her contemporaries, including Marie-Antoinette and courtiers in her circle. As was the case with many eighteenth-century artists whose reputations declined following the French Revolution, the art of Vallayer-Coster has, until quite recently, been something of a well-kept secret, admired by specialists of the period but largely unknown to the general public. Organized by the Dallas Museum of Art, Anne Vallayer-Coster: Painter to the Court of MarieAntoinette features some thirty-five paintings from museums and private collections in the United States and Europe. The exhibition was developed and curated by Eik Kahng, formerly with the Dallas Museum of Art and currently the Associate Curator of 18th- and 19th-Century Art at The Walters Art Museum. The exhibition comes to The Frick Collection, the third and final North American venue on the tour, in January 2003, following its presentation at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the Dallas Museum of Art (the exhibition’s last venue is the Centre de La Vieille Charité in Marseille, France). Anne Vallayer-Coster: Painter to the Court of Marie Antoinette is made possible through the support of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman and the Fellows of The Frick Collection.