1685-1766 French Jean Marc Nattier Gallery Brother of Jean-Baptiste Nattier. As well as being taught by his father, he trained with his godfather, Jean Jouvenet, and attended the drawing classes of the Academie Royale, where in 1700 he won the Premier Prix de Dessin. From around 1703 he worked on La Galerie du Palais du Luxembourg. The experience of copying the work of Rubens does not, however, seem to have had a liberating effect on his draughtsmanship, which was described by the 18th-century collector Pierre-Jean Mariette as cold. Nattier was commissioned to make further drawings for engravers in the early part of his career, including those after Hyacinthe Rigaud famous state portrait of Louis XIV (1701; Paris, Louvre) in 1710, which indicates that he had established a reputation while he was still quite young. Although he was offered a place at the Academie de France in Rome on the recommendation of Jouvenet, Nattier preferred to remain in Paris and further his career. In 1717 he nevertheless made a trip to Holland, where he painted portraits of Peter the Great and the Empress Catherine (St Petersburg, Hermitage). The Tsar offered Nattier work at the Russian court, but the artist declined the offer. He remained in Paris for the rest of his life.  Related Paintings of Jean Marc Nattier :. | Madame Victoire of France | Madame Sophie of France | Princess Marie Adelaide of France | Madame de Caumartin as Hebe | Portrait of a Lady |
Related Artists:
BORGOGNONE, Ambrogio
Italian painter, Milanese school (b. ca. 1453, Fossano, d.1523).
SALUCCI, Alessandro
Italian painter, Roman school (b. 1590, Firenze, d. 1655/60, Roma). Italian painter. He specialized in imaginary architectural perspectives and harbour views, in which the figures were executed by other artists, most notably Jan Miel and Michelangelo Cerquozzi. His pictures were praised by contemporary and near contemporary writers, including Carlo Malvasia, and during the 17th century were popular with private collectors in both Florence and Rome. However, many of the paintings mentioned in contemporary sources remain untraced. He is first documented in Rome in 1628, when, with Andrea Sacchi and Pietro da Cortona, he worked on the fresco decorations of the Villa Sacchetti (now Chigi), Castelfusano (nr Ostia), to which he contributed personifications of the River Nile and the River Rh?ne (in situ). He became a member of the Accademia di S Luca in Rome in 1634, and after 1635 he was engaged on frescoes (in situ) depicting sacred subjects in S Maria in Vallicella, Rome. From the mid-1630s onward Salucci collaborated with Miel on the imaginary architectural subjects for which he is best known, including the Perspective with Portico
George Gower
1540-1596 English George Gower Gallery Little is known about his early life except that he was a grandson of Sir John Gower of Stettenham, Yorkshire. His earliest documented works are the two 1573 companion portraits of Sir Thomas Kytson and his wife Lady Kytson, now in the Tate Gallery in London. Gower painted a self-portrait in 1579 (right) that shows his coat of arms and his artist's tools of his trade. An allegorical device shows a balance with an artist's dividers outweighing the family coat of arms, "a startling claim in England where a painter was still viewed as little more than an artisan." The Armada portrait of Elizabeth I by George Gower c. 1588Gower was appointed to the position of Serjeant Painter to Queen Elizabeth in 1581. This allowed him to paint most of England??s aristocracy. The post also made him responsible for painted decoration at the royal residences, and on coaches and furniture. Among his works were a fountain (now destroyed) and the astronomical clock, both at Hampton Court Palace. He also inspected portraits of the Queen by other artists prior to their official release. Gower's best-known work is the version of the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth now at Woburn Abbey, painted to commemorate the 1588 defeat of the Spanish Armada. (A cut down version of this painting in the National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom) is attributed to Gower; the "Drake" version is by a different hand.)