Brief Biography-Jean-Marc Nattier was born in Paris in 1685. His father tutored him before entering the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture and studying at the Luxembourg Gallery of Art. He came to notice with his drawings of paintings by Rubens for Marie de Médici. Peter the Great summoned him to Amsterdam, where he painted his portrait and court members, and he painted Empress Catherine in the Hague, which he never finished. With his Battle of Poltava and the Marriage Feast of Phineus, he achieved his election to the Academy. He went through financial difficulty with the schemes of Law in 1720 and turned from history painting to portraiture. Nattier later found success painting ladies of the court of Louis XV in allegorical posture. He died in Paris in 1766.