The Spring (La Source), Jean Marc Nattier (1738)

The Spring (La Source), Jean Marc Nattier (1738) Jean Marc Nattier’s The Spring (La Source) is a luminous celebration of renewal and beauty. The painting features a young woman, long mistaken for a princess, gracefully poised as the allegorical embodiment of spring itself. With her soft gaze and flowing drapery, she cradles a vase of water—symbolizing purity, life, and the gentle awakening of the season. Nattier, renowned for his elegant portraits and allegorical figures, here favors a loose, fluid brushwork that enhances the scene’s dreamlike charm. Created for the vibrant 18th-century art market rather than for any single patron, this work invites viewers to linger in an ideal world where youth and nature’s bounty are eternally in bloom. Cotton and polyester canvas on Radiata pine wood frame sourced from renewable forests. Includes back mounting.