A glass bowl, a brioche, a basket of peaches and a bunch of horseradishes have been arranged against a dark background on a cracked marble slab. The refined
simplicity of the picture is typical of Anne Vallayer-Coster – one of the most successful women artists of 18th-century France. The still-life painting of Chardin, which dominated the first half of the century, was an important starting point for her art. But Vallayer-Coster developed a style of her own, with freer brushwork and a more nuanced palette.