Card (Valentine): Be Mine

Manon Belletti (detail)

Jean-Marc Nattier 1757

oil on canvas 54 x 47.5 cm

Manon Balletti was the daughter of an actress in the Comedie Italienne company and became engaged to Casanova at about the time the portrait was painted.In 1760 she married a more reputable though older suitor, the architect Jacques-Francois Blondel.

Nattier was born in paris and was one the leading portrait painters during the reign of Louis XV, to whom he was the official painter.  He was accepted into the Acadamey in 1718.