Old French Portrait From The 18th Century, Jean Marc Nattier (workshop)

The lady in the portrait could be Louise Marie of Bourbon-France (Versailles, July 15, 1737 - Saint-Denis, December 23, 1787) born princess [1] of France, she became abbess of Saint-Denis.
Like her elder sisters Adelaide, Luisa and Sofia, she never married and she also took vows and became a Carmelite nun with the name of Sister Teresa of Sant'Agostino. She then left the court and Versailles in 1770, where she had grown up, and she locked herself up in the convent of Saint-Denis, where she remained for life.
Luisa Maria died in 1787 and was therefore spared the trauma of the French Revolution and of seeing many French family members and nobles who had not fled abroad at her gallows, including her nephew and her wife Marie Antoinette.
His only sisters still alive in 1789, Adelaide and Vittoria Luisa, managed to save themselves as they left in 1791 for Italy and never returned.
On 19 June 1873 Pope Pius IX introduced the cause for her beatification and Pope John Paul II, on 18 December 1997, declared Sister Teresa of Sant'Agostino venerable, remembered every year on 23 December.


Jean Marc Nattier - the painter who exalted female beauty to the point that he modified the appearance of the models he painted in order to improve their appearance

Jean-Marc Nattier (Paris, March 17, 1685 - Paris, November 7, 1776)
Jean-Marc Nattier did not have a quick and easy career. To get there he had to fight all his life. He belonged to one of those families of artists who handed down the practice of art from father to son. His father Marc Nattier, a member of the Royal Academy, was a portrait painter who was inspired by the school of Claude Lefèbvre. Mother Marie Courtois was a miniaturist. She was paralyzed at 22, which did not prevent her from giving birth to two children, Jean-Baptiste and Jean-Marc.
His illustrious protector was the history painter Jean Jouvenet, professor and then director of the Royal Academy, where his father sent him, very young, to learn the art. Jean-Marc won the drawing prize at the age of 15, obtaining the pupils' pension. He was thus commissioned in 1703 to draw, in the gallery of the Luxembourg Palace, the famous sequel to Rubens 'works, the Cycle of Marie de' Medici, Queen of France, and subsequently have them engraved, with the permission of Louis XIV, who had already got to appreciate his talent. In the execution of his 24 drawings he was helped by his brother Jean-Baptiste who, involved in the Deschaffours trial, committed suicide by cutting his throat before being burned at the stake in Place de Grève (1726). This work, completed in 1710, gave him notoriety, although it received some criticism. As soon as this great work was finished, he was proposed by Jouvenet to go to the French Academy in Rome. His work commitments and a certain amount of laziness led him to refuse, even if he later regretted it, especially because of his never forgotten ambition to become a history painter. But his life had to follow another path. In May 1715 his application to become a member of the Royal Academy was accepted, although the painting that was commissioned by Antoine Coypel for admission was not delivered until October 1718. In 1717 Nattier accepted the invitation of the Tsar and left for Amsterdam to reach the Court of Peter the Great, then moved to The Hague with the order to make the portrait of Empress Catherine. The Tsarina was enthusiastic about it and wrote to the Tsar who asked Nattier to go to Paris where the artist began the painting of Peter the Great. But at the next invitation to follow him to Russia Nattier refused. Man of modest habits and fond of his neighborhood, he was afraid of a trip to a land too far away, which was said to be populated by barbarians. The Tsar, not used to waste, definitively broke off relations with the French painter. Nattier also fell into the trap of Law's System, which led to the stars and then pulverized many private wealths in 1720. He was forced at this time in his life to perform low-paying portraits and orders of all kinds. Fortunately for him, in 1721 he was associated by a friend of his, Jean-Baptiste Massé, to a work of engraving, for the reproduction of the paintings of the Grand Gallery of Versailles and the Salons of War and Peace.
In 1724 he married a 16-year-old girl, Marie-Madeleine de la Roche, daughter of a musketeer of the king, accustomed to a comfortable life, from which he had numerous offspring. This marriage brought Nattier a lot of happiness, but due to his utter inability to manage his own earnings, it will cause him financial problems for life.

success

In Paris, a talented and highly sought-after artist was Jean Raoux, who painted portraits of ladies dressed in silk and satin in imaginary landscapes. Theatrical actresses, bourgeois and even the great ladies of the court flocked to his studio. Jean-Marc, who at the past 40 years was still waiting for the great occasion, hastened to imitate the fanciful works of his colleague, adorning them with a more exaggerated allegorical composition. When Nattier produced his first masterpieces, success was immediate with the paintings of Mademoiselle de Clermont (Maria Anna di Borbone-Condé) of 1729 and Mademoiselle de Lambesc (Giovanna Luisa of Lorena) of 1732. These works greatly increased his fame and the world of the Court began to take an interest in him. The Grand Prior, Gian Filippo d'Orléans entrusted him with the task of completing the decoration of the Gallery of the Maison du Temple in December 1734. Thanks to his relations with the princes of Lorraine, his earnings were assured for a long time. In 1740 the Duchess of Mazarin-de la Porte, very influential at Court, called him to paint the portrait of her cousins: Hortense de Mailly Marquise of Flavacourt and Marie-Anne de Mailly Marquise de la Tournelle, future favorite of the king. These two works, very important for his career, opened the doors of Versailles to him. In 1742 the queen ordered him to begin the portrait of Madame Henriette de France, then fifteen. This painting was very much liked by the royal family, and thus had the prestigious assignment of making the portrait of his majesty Louis XV. Soon after he began to work for the princesses, which he will paint at all ages, remedying the lack of charm of some, enhancing, with his extraordinary talent, the femininity of the others. In September 1937 the Louvre Salon was opened to artists for the first time, where Nattier exhibited his works throughout his life. At the 1945 Salon the artist presented new compositions with the Duchesses of France in the guise of Hebe (divinity of youth), portraits that want to express eternal beauty. Even Charles-Nicolas Cochin, director of Fine Arts and a good friend of him, will speak of it as a fashion for ridicule. But it was the most important exhibition for the artist, with the painting of Maria Adelaide of France, then thirteen, in the guise of Diana, which made him the favorite portraitist of the princesses. He then painted the portraits of the teenage daughters of Louis XV, at the Abbey of Fontevrault, the place of education of the princesses Victoire, Sophie and little Louise. It was then that he had the honor of being called by the queen, who at 45 decided to be portrayed for the last time. After the canvases of Alexis Simon Belle, Jean-Baptiste van Loo and Louis Tocqué, Maria Leszczynska refused the court dress for the first time. The painting shows all the elegance and grace of the Queen of France. Exhibited at the 1748 salon it was enormously successful. Critics who disliked Nattier's artifices were forced to applaud this beautifully crafted intimate portrait.