Portrait of a Woman as Diana (1752): Art, History and Details

Portrait of a Woman as Diana (1752) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean-Marc Nattier (French, 1685–1766).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

For many years, this sitter was identified as Madame de Pompadour, but she bears little resemblance to this pivotal figure in French art and politics of the mid 1700s. Nattier specialized in portraits of women in mythological guises—in this case, the bow, quiver, and leopard skin, all attributes of Diana, goddess of the hunt.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of a Woman as Diana
• Date: 1752
• Creator attribution: Jean-Marc Nattier (French, 1685–1766)
• Culture: France
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 127.5 x 107.5 x 10 cm (50 3/16 x 42 5/16 x 3 15/16 in.); Unframed: 100.4 x 79.5 cm (39 1/2 x 31 5/16 in.)
• Collection: P - French 18th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1942.643

A detail from the museum

The sitter was once thought to be King Louis XV’s daughter Henriette or his mistress Madame de Pompadour. Today, her identity is unknown.

Collection credit

Bequest of John L. Severance

Further reading listed by the museum

• Salmon, Xavier. Jean Marc Nattier: 1685-1766. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1999.
• Joseph Baillio, email to Victoria Sears Goldman, Feb. 18. 2014, in CMA curatorial file.
• Renard, Philippe, and Jean-Marc Nattier. Jean-Marc Nattier (1685-1766): un artiste parisien à la cour de Louis XV. Saint-Rémy-en-l'Eau: Monelle Hayot, 1999.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.