3-002-570 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Portrait of a Woman and her Dog, 1750. The elegant works of Jean-Marc Nattier exemplify mid 18th-century French portraiture. Although he was admitted to the Académie Royale (Royal Academy) as a painter of historical subjects (then ranked as the highest category of painting), Nattier specialized in the less prestigious genre of portraiture. Though he worked at the court of Louis XV, he broke with the baroque tradition of grandiose portraits.