Jean-Marc Nattier

Jean-Marc Nattier (1685-1766) was an official French court portraitist for King Louis XV, responsible for painting the King's daughters and their children. Nattier's father was also a court portraitist and his mother, a miniaturist. He was trained by his uncle, Jean Jouvenet, to be a history painter, and was commissioned by Peter the Great to paint historical battle scenes, as well as portraits of the Russian Czar and his wife, Catherine.

Well known for his depiction of female subjects as mythological goddesses, such as Diana, Venus, and Flora, Nattier's paintings can be found in the Louvre in Paris, his birthplace, the Uffizi in Florence, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, as well as in private collections. The artist was considered a member of the Rococo movement, the late Baroque style that adopted a more playful and florid approach in response to the grandeur and strict symmetry rules of earlier Baroque arts. The Rococo embraced the ornate, asymmetrical, and curvy bathed in creamy pastels and gold.