Madame de Flesselles, 1747

Nattier came from an artistic milieu; his father was a portrait painter, his mother painted miniatures, and his godfather was the history painter Jean Jouvenet. Nattier studied with his parents and godfather, and then at the Royal Academy, where he was accepted as an official member in 1717. He became a sought-after portraitist, mostly of women, whom he often depicted allegorically as figures from mythology or ancient history. In the 1740s, he painted Madame de Pompadour as Diana, and received commissions to paint the daughters of Louis XV for the royal bedchamber at Versailles, as well as the queen, Maria Leczinska. Here, Elisabeth de Flesselles, wife of Parisian banker Jacques de Flesselles, is pictured as the source, or the personification, of a river. The oar signifies that the river, spilling from her urn, is navigable.