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French before 1760
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Jean-Marc Nattier (French, 1685-1766)
Portrait of a Lady as a Vestal Virgin, 1759
Oil on canvas, 45 1/2 x 53 1/2 in. (114.3 x 135.9 cm.)
Purchased with funds from the State of North Carolina, 52.9.130
Nattier made a specialty of mythological portraits, in which he sought to enhance his fashionable sitters by depicting them as Olympian goddesses or classical personages. In Roman religion, vestals were virgins who were charged with the preservation of fire in the Temple of Vesta, the state hearth. This painting, when shown at the Salon of 1759, was criticized for depicting a vestal virgin as a voluptuous, mature woman rather than a youthful, innocent maiden.
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