Marie Adelaide of France as Diana

Jean-Marc Nattier's Marie Adélaïde of France as Diana, painted in 1745, is one of the finest examples of his specialty: the portrait historié, in which French royal and aristocratic women were depicted in the guise of classical goddesses and allegorical figures. Marie Adélaïde was the fourth daughter of Louis XV, and her depiction as Diana — goddess of the hunt and of chastity — was a conventional honorific that combined flattery with moral idealization. Nattier's portraits of the daughters of Louis XV established his reputation at Versailles and defined the visual language of French aristocratic femininity in the 1740s.

Nattier places Marie Adélaïde in a silvery landscape with Diana's crescent moon and hunting attributes. His signature combination of silky pastel flesh tones, iridescent drapery in blues and golds, and soft atmospheric backgrounds gives the sitter an otherworldly luminosity.