How a Great Lost Painting Ended Up at a DC Museum

The painting had been missing for almost 200 years–a great 18th-century work by an important French artist that was exhibited just once, at the Louvre in 1783, and subsequently vanished. Then one day in 2022, a family reached out to Christie’s in Paris. There was a painting in their home that had been in the family for generations, but nobody knew what it was. Possibly something Dutch? In fact, the auction house told them, it was that lost work by Anne Vallayer-Coster, an artist revered during her lifetime (Marie Antoinette was a fan and patron) and whose work is now highly collectible. This was a major discovery.

When National Gallery of Art associate curator Aaron Wile heard about the painting’s reemergence, he decided he had to act quickly. “As soon as I saw it,” he says, “I knew it was something we wanted.” A specialist in 18th-century French painting, Wile had long been aware of the lost Vallayer-­Coster, titled “Still Life With Flowers in an Alabaster Vase and Fruit.” Back when it was originally shown, it was greeted as a masterpiece. The artist is said to have thought it her best painting, and she refused to sell it during her lifetime. Now it was sitting in storage in Paris, Christie’s told Wile. Did he want to come take a look?

A couple of weeks later, Wile got on a plane, bringing along Mary Morton, the museum’s head of French paintings, and Michael Swicklik, its senior conservator of paintings. When they arrived, they were led to a poorly lit basement, where the Vallayer-Coster was waiting. Despite the less-than-ideal conditions, they were wowed by what they saw. The painting was in great shape for its age, but there were some issues: a tear near the bottom, places that had been painted over, and a mysterious bit of plywood glued to the back that made Swicklik especially nervous. “That’s a bad sign,” he says. “This is not the kind of thing a professional conservator would ever dream of doing.” But Swicklik was confident that whatever damage it concealed could be dealt with. They decided they would bid on the work. “If I were by myself, that probably would have scared me off,” says Wile. “We were a little nervous.”

The auction took place on June 15 last year, and Wile called in to bid on behalf of the NGA. There was a lot of interest: The pre-auction estimate had been 600,000 to a million euros, but bidding soon flew past that. In the end, Wile made the winning offer: about $2.8 million. “We were jumping up and down, high-fiving,” he recalls. “I got a glass of Champagne.”

Months later, on a January afternoon, Swicklik was standing at his usual spot in the National Gallery’s painting conservation lab, a cheerfully bright workroom in a private area of the West Building. The Vallayer-­Coster stood in front of him, removed from its frame—which was being restored separately—and attached to a heavy easel, where the conservator had been working five or six hours a day to clean, repair, and preserve it.

Natural light poured in from a nearby window, highlighting its masterful detail. “That’s what is so pleas­urable about doing this work,” said Swicklik, who estimates he’ll spend about 500 hours working on just this one painting. “You really get to understand the skill of the painter. It blows your mind every once in a while, seeing this level of virtuosity.”

When the flower painting arrived on Swicklik’s easel last summer, he was finally able to investigate the condition problems, including that worrisome piece of plywood. First, he put the canvas under ultraviolet light to better see what was going on. As he feared, the wood had been slapped onto the back to repair a tear; the front had been smeared with plaster and thick paint—a hack job.

Swicklik removed the bad work, and now an ugly triangular tear marred a large section of the upper left corner. It looked awful, but when the conservator is done with it, the damage won’t be obvious to most viewers.

Once all of the conservation work is complete this spring, the Vallayer-­Coster will be reunited with its frame and ready to hang in one of the museum’s French galleries, where visitors will at last be able to see it. Then it’s just about getting the word out to the public. The museum is already working on that: In November, it posted an eye-catching animation of the painting on Instagram, where it blew up into what the NGA says is its first viral hit. But the only real way to appreciate Vallayer-Coster’s work will be to gaze at it in person—something Wile can’t wait for museum-goers to do. “They’ll get to see it!” he says. “It will be on the wall. That’s the goal: We want to make this work accessible to the public.” And after that? “Then,” he says, “it’s on to the next one.”

This article appears in the March 2024 issue of Washingtonian.

Rob Brunner

Politics and Culture Editor

Rob Brunner grew up in DC and moved back in 2017 to join Washingtonian. Previously, he was an editor and writer at Fast Company and other publications. He lives with his family in Chevy Chase DC.