Portrait of Madame Bonnier de la Mosson as Diana (Constance-Gabrielle-Magdeleine du Monciel de Lauraille

Nattier's portrait of Madame Bonnier de la Mosson as Diana, painted in 1742, depicts a member of one of the wealthiest bourgeois families in France — the Bonniers were prominent tax farmers — in the guise of the goddess of the hunt. The choice of Diana for a bourgeois rather than royal sitter reflects the democratization of the mythological portrait historié as the genre spread from the court to the upper bourgeoisie. Madame Bonnier's wealthy father-in-law Joseph Bonnier de la Mosson had famously assembled one of the great natural history cabinets of the age, and the family's cultural ambitions aligned with commissioning the most fashionable portraitist of the day.

Nattier places the subject in a forest setting with Diana's attributes — crescent moon, quiver, hounds. His distinctive silvery palette and delicate modeling of silk and flesh are fully mature here, creating a seamless blending of portraiture and mythology.