Painting of the Week: Portrait of Manon Balletti by Jean-Marc Nattier, 1757

Portrait of Manon Balletti
Jean-Marc Nattier, 1757
The National Gallery, Britain

The brilliant color of her face stands out against her powdered hair and pearl-trimmed silver gown. A rose at her bodice mimics the flower of her cheeks as she gazes at us sweetly from the Eighteenth Century.


This portrait by Jean-Marc Nattier was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1757. Nattier was one of the leading French portrait artists during the reign of Louis XV. His work is celebrated for its fine detail, the tactile look of the flesh, the liveliness of his sitters’ expressions, and his bold contrasting colors. This sumptuous painting depicts Manon Balletti—the daughter of a famed French actress. Miss Balletti was notoriously engaged to Casanova before making a smarter marriage to an older, more stable architect. Nattier’s knack for creating monumentality in his portrait by employing classical elements to his work is evident here. Manon Balletti looks like a statue come to life. She is, indeed, as lustrous as the pearls which adorn her gown.

Painting of the Week: Canaletto’s “Eton College,” 1754

Eton College
Canaletto, 1754
National Gallery, Britain

Venetian painter Giovanni Antonio Canal (known as Canaletto) was admired for his accurate landscape paintings which depicted startlingly precise topographical features.  His work was especially favored by English collectors.  Canaletto spent a good amount of time traveling and living in England and painted many brilliant landscapes and English scenes.  The painting of Eton College shows the college chapel from the East from across the Thames.   Though Canaletto was staying in nearby Windsor in 1747, and could have painted this piece at that time, the style of the painting suggests that it is a later work dating to about 1754.  This, and other examples of Canaletto’s work is in the permanent collection at the National Gallery, Britain.

Painting of the Week: Portrait of Manon Balletti by Jean-Marc Nattier, 1757

Portrait of Manon Balletti
Jean-Marc Nattier, 1757
The National Gallery, Britain

The brilliant color of her face stands out against her powdered hair and pearl-trimmed silver gown. A rose at her bodice mimics the flower of her cheeks as she gazes at us sweetly from the Eighteenth Century.


This portrait by Jean-Marc Nattier was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1757. Nattier was one of the leading French portrait artists during the reign of Louis XV. His work is celebrated for its fine detail, the tactile look of the flesh, the liveliness of his sitters’ expressions, and his bold contrasting colors. This sumptuous painting depicts Manon Balletti—the daughter of a famed French actress. Miss Balletti was notoriously engaged to Casanova before making a smarter marriage to an older, more stable architect. Nattier’s knack for creating monumentality in his portrait by employing classical elements to his work is evident here. Manon Balletti looks like a statue come to life. She is, indeed, as lustrous as the pearls which adorn her gown.

Painting of the Week: Salome with the Head of John The Baptist, 1665-1670

Salome with the Head of John the Baptist
1665-1670
Carlo Dolci
The Royal Collection

I have a particular fondness, as I’ve mentioned before, for paintings of John the Baptist’s decapitated head. I’m not quite sure why. I think it’s because deep down, I have Baroque tendencies. After all, no one offered up better paintings of John on a platter than the Baroque Italian artists.

Take this stunning work by Carlo Dolci for example. This painting, executed between 1665 and 1670, was actually Dolci’s second version of the subject. The first, last seen in 1870, has since been lost, or, at the very least is unaccounted for. Dolci excelled at depicting religious scenes. His attention to detail, the clarity of his hand and his impeccable sense of composition and color brought Biblical figures to life. Here, Salome—resplendent in a bejeweled, blue silk gown—is painted so sensitively that her expression seems to change as we view the piece. She seems, at first smug, and, then contrite. On a second glance, she even looks a little fearful. Of course, John’s head is given special treatment with a shining halo that rather cruelly mimics the arc of his dead eyes and slightly-parted lips. This is Italian Baroque painting at its finest.

The artist, Carlo Dolci, was introduced to Sir John Finch in Florence in 1665. Finch admired Dolci’s work immensely and the two struck up a friendship. Finch commissioned several religious scenes for his own private collection and made a gift of this painting of Salome to King Charles II. And, so, the painting remains today in the Royal Collection. This is a fascinating work. Somehow Dolci has taken a gruesome scene and made it into something quite sweet.

Painting of the Week: A Portrait by William Holman Hunt, 1847

William Holman Hunt, 1847
F.G. Stevens
Tate Britain

William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite School of artists which strove to create crisp, romantic, almost hyper-realistic artwork of fantastical themes. His early work, however, was defined by a sharply contrasting loose style of approach. This painting of Holman Hunt’s friend, F.G. Stevens is an excellent example of the artist’s early work. Here, we see a figure of a young man, painted in free, natural brushstrokes. We can, however, see the elements of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood beginning to develop in the romanticized facial features of the model.


F.G. Stevens was a frequent model for Holman Hunt and his friends. Stevens was also a painter, but later abandoned brushes for a pen and embarked on a successful career as a writer and critic. His influence, in fact, was one of the driving forces behind the acceptance of The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England. This just goes to prove that when all of the different arts work together, something exceptional will always happen.