Isabelle de Bourbon, infante de Parme

Isabelle de Bourbon was the Infanta of Parma, born in 1741 as the daughter of Philip I of Parma and Louise Élisabeth de France. She would later become the first wife of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, who was devastated by her early death in 1763 at the age of twenty-one. Nattier's 1749 portrait at Versailles depicts her at age eight—a child's portrait in the grand dynastic tradition. The Parma court, ruled by the Spanish Bourbon branch under French cultural influence, was a nexus of the Franco-Austrian diplomatic relationship, and portraits of its members circulated through European courts as instruments of dynastic policy. Young Isabelle was already being positioned in the marriage market that dominated aristocratic politics, and her portrait was part of the image-making apparatus that assessed and presented royal children as future diplomatic assets. The Versailles collection holds this alongside numerous other dynastic childhood portraits that document the visual politics of the ancien régime.

Nattier's portrait of an eight-year-old adopts the conventions of adult portraiture—formal dress, composed pose—while acknowledging the sitter's youth through softer facial modelling and a slightly less imposing compositional arrangement than his adult commissions.