Jean-Marc Nattier

A child prodigy who, as a teenager, completed paintings for Empress Catherine of Russia and Peter the Great of Amsterdam, Jean-Marc Nattier was born in Paris to a family of well established painters. In the 1720s, Nattier revived a style of portrait painting in which the sitter appears as a figure from Greco-Roman mythology. This method became extremely fashionable and Nattier was a favorite painter of Louis XV’s court ladies, who sought an idealized portrayal but wanted to see their likeness on canvas. Nattier may have preferred to paint history paintings, but most of his works are portraits—a more lucrative genre.