Basket of Plums (1769): Art, History and Details

Basket of Plums (1769) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Anne Vallayer-Coster (French, 1744–1818).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

During the later part of the 1700s, fruit still lifes were extremely popular, and a basket of plums was a common motif. In Vallayer's painting the details, especially the plums and the basket, emerge from deep shadows. The colors are vivid reds and violets and a sense of immediacy is invoked by the growing moss, the cakes in their crisp papers, and the glass of water with its sparkling highlights and reflections.

Object facts

• Title: Basket of Plums
• Date: 1769
• Creator attribution: Anne Vallayer-Coster (French, 1744–1818)
• Culture: France
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Unframed: 38 x 46.2 cm (14 15/16 x 18 3/16 in.)
• Collection: P - French 18th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1971.47

A detail from the museum

The artist painted a companion to this work—a plate of peaches and branch of cherries.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Paris, Salon, 1771.
• Collection des livrets des anciennes expositions depuis 1673 jusqu'en 1800. Paris: Liepmannssohn et Dufour, 1869. .
• Engelska, franska, italienska, nederländska, spanka och tyska konstverk: Utst. Nationalmuseum 1918. 1918.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.