Jean-marc Nattier Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Jean-Marc Nattier (Paris, 17 March 1685 – Paris, 7 November 1776) was a French painter. Born to the painter Marc Nattier and the miniaturist Marie Courtois, Jean-Marc began his artistic career under his father, studying and copying paintings exhibited at the Musée du Luxembourg, not far from the Luxembourg Palace in Paris. Read the full biography

Jean-Marc Nattier (Paris, 17 March 1685 – Paris, 7 November 1776) was a French painter. Born to the painter Marc Nattier and the miniaturist Marie Courtois, Jean-Marc began his artistic career under his father, studying and copying paintings exhibited at the Musée du Luxembourg, not far from the Luxembourg Palace in Paris. Despite having won an important recognition in his homeland, which would have allowed him to travel to the great Italian art centers, the young Nattier preferred not to leave for Rome. In 1715 he moved instead to Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, where the Tsar of Russia Peter the Great resided; here he had the opportunity to portray the tsar's wife, Empress Catherine but he refused to move to the Russian court. Between 1715 and 1720 he dedicated himself to the creation of paintings for Peter I, such as the famous representation of the Battle of Pultawa: paintings that led him to be admitted among the members of the Academy. In the last years of his life, Nattier dedicated himself completely to portraiture of the greatest names of the court of Versailles. Among his clients were the Queen of France Maria Leszczyńska, her father Stanislaus Leszczyński, former King of Poland and Duke of Lorraine, and the Marquise of Pompadour, powerful favorite of the French King Louis XV.