Jean-Marc Nattier
Jean-Marc Nattier (* 17th March 1685 in Paris ; † 7. November 1766 ) was a French painter of the Rococo . At the height of his career he was a gallant painter of the ladies of the court society of Louis XV.
Life
Nattier was born the son of the portraitist Marc Nattier and the miniature painter Marie Courtois . His brother was the painter Jean-Baptiste Nattier . He learned his first artistic steps from his father and his uncle, the history painter Jean Jouvenet . His talent was evident at an early age: at the age of fifteen, he won the Académie royale prize for his drawings. However, he gave up the place he had won at the Académie de France in Rome and instead made a series of drawings from Peter Paul Rubens' Medici cycle in the Palais du Luxembourg ; the publication of copper engravings based on his drawings (engraved by Pierre-Jean Mariette ) in 1710 made Nattier known for the first time. His later fame is said to have been predicted by Louis XIV when he saw some of Nattier's drawings: "Carry on, Nattier, and you will become a great man."
In 1703 Nattier enrolled at the Académie royale as a student. In 1715 he was admitted as a temporary member , on October 29, 1718 with the recording piece Perseus petrified Phineus and his companions with the head of Medusa (Musée de Tours ) as a full member of the academy. In 1752 he was appointed professor.
In 1716 he went to Amsterdam with the ambassador of Peter the Great , where he painted some personalities of the Russian court. Then he went to The Hague to portray the Empress Catherine I (1717, Hermitage, St. Petersburg), which in turn earned him the benevolence of the Tsar, whose portrait he finally painted back in Paris. He also made a depiction of the Battle of Poltava on behalf of the Tsar. However, when he turned down his offer to come to Russia, Peter the Great turned his back on him and left Paris without paying for the royal portraits.
The collapse of the banking system of John Law in 1720 meant the loss of his fortune for Nattier too, so that he had to concentrate on the more lucrative portraiture, in which he quickly gained great reputation. He became the official portraitist of the d'Orléans family and in 1748 portrait painter at the court of Louis XV. Little by little he brought an old genre back to life, namely that of the allegorical portrait, in which he portrayed a living personality as the deity of Olympus or as an allegorical figure. These graceful portraits were with the court ladies of Louis XV. very popular, among other things because they allowed the model seated to be portrayed in their personality despite avoiding possible imperfections. He also became the inventor of the "portrait histoiré" . A good example is the portrait of the royal mistress Madame de Pompadour as Diana . From the 1740s onwards, tastes changed and Nattier's portraits became simpler, for example the portrait of Maria Leszczyńska from 1748 (including Versailles and the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon) - the last portrait for which the queen was a model.
Jean Philippe François d'Orléans commissioned Nattier to finish the furnishing of his city palace, begun by Jean Raoux . After the death of his client, the Prince of Conti sold all of his paintings and other possessions. Horrified by this auction sale of his works, Nattier himself bought some of his best paintings.
From 1737 to 1763 Nattier exhibited in the Paris Salon, where he was praised for his paintings and pastels as well as his fine and soft colors.
In later years his star began to decline and his patrons turned away from him. His son, in whose painting career Nattier had high hopes, drowned in the Tiber while receiving a scholarship from the Académie in Rome. Two of his daughters married the painters Charles-Michel-Ange Challe and Louis Tocqué ; the latter was to become Nattier's most talented student. He spent the last four years of his life sick and bedridden. In 1766 he died at the age of 81 and was impoverished.
Among the personalities of the time that Nattier portrayed were the Maréchal de Saxe (Gemäldegalerie Dresden), Empress Maria Theresa of Austria (Museum Brussels), Louis, Dauphin of France , his wife Maria Theresa of Spain , the daughters of the regent Philippe II. , Philippine Élisabeth and Louise Diane and Marie Anne de Bourbon-Condé . He also portrayed the eight daughters of King Louis XV, including Madame Henriette and Madame Adélaïde , whose portraits were exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1758 and are now in the Palace of Versailles .
Works (selection)
Madame de Pompadour as Diana (1746) (Museum, Versailles)
Portrait of Queen Maria Leczinska (1748)
Anna Elisabeth Leerse, 1749, Städelsches Kunstinstitut
Johann Georg Leerse, 1749, Städelsches Kunstinstitut
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supporting documents
- ↑ Persée, assisté par Minerve, pétrifie Phinée et ses compagnons en leur présentant la tête de Méduse. (No longer available online.) In: www.mba.tours.fr. Archived from the original on October 7, 2015 ; Retrieved August 19, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Haldane MacFall: A History of Painting. The French Genius, Vol. 6, London 1911, pp. 149f.
- ↑ Madame de Pompadour. L'Art et l'Amour, exh. Cat. Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon et al. 2002, Munich 2002, cat. No. 42, p. 142.
- ↑ Nattier as a pastel painter (PDF; 1.9 MB)
Web links
- Works by Jean-Marc Nattier at Zeno.org .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Nattier, Jean-Marc |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French Rococo painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 17, 1685 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 7, 1766 |
| Place of death | Paris |