Back to Imperial Portraits PreviousNext
Jean-Marc Nattier
(French, 1685 — 1766)
Peter I (The Great) (1717)
Oil on canvas.
56 x 43.5 inches (142.5 x 110 cm)
A member of an artistic family, Jean-Marc Nattier began his training in his father's studio and may have continued to study under Jouvenet. After the death of Louis XIV, Nattier moved to Amsterdam where he painted portraits of the Czar and Czarina of Russia, but refused the appointment he was offered in Saint Petersburg. Nattier was greatly renowned as a portrait painter at the court of Louis XV (painting the King's daughters several times) and in aristocratic circles, adapting the conventions of Largilliere and Raoux to an extremely flattering style that has come to be regarded as the archetypal eighteenth century French portrait. Very prolific at the time that it was fashionable to possess a Nattier.
Size can be commissioned smaller or larger.
Collection of the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.