Portrait of a Womanc. 1748
Jean-Marc Nattier was a favorite portraitist of King Louis XV of France. He held the lucrative position as the court painter for Queen Mary Lesczynski, the daughter of the exiled king of Poland. More about this work
About this work
Jean-Marc Nattier was a favorite portraitist of King Louis XV of France. He held the lucrative position as the court painter for Queen Mary Lesczynski, the daughter of the exiled king of Poland. The portrait was long thought to be of Madame Henriette de France, one of the daughters of Louis XV and Queen Mary Lesczynski, but this identification is no longer accepted and the sitter remains unknown. There has been considerable confusion over the identity of many of Nattier's sitters, as they tend to conform to an idealized concept of female beauty.
Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Cleveland Museum of Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1948.183
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- European Painting and Sculpture
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
