J. M. Nattier. A FRIEND OF THE CONDÉS. _Photo Braun & Co._ Largillière.] Largillière resided for many years in England and studied for some time under Sir Peter Lely. On his return to Paris he was taken up by Charles Le Brun. His style belongs as much to the seventeenth as to the eighteenth century. Elegance and luxury, and a touch of serenity prevail in all his portraits. Mariette was greatly struck by his personal vigour and tells us that he went on working even up to his eighty-sixth year. Although too often over-exuberant he generally succeeded in imparting to his patrons great liveliness of aspect, and they _live_ still, clad in their most sumptuous apparel. Such is the portrait of the elegant "_Unknown_"[134] at Chantilly, once in the Collection at the Palais Bourbon; from which circumstance we may suppose that the sitter was some intimate friend of the Condé family. By Jean Marc Nattier there is at Chantilly a life-size portrait of _Mademoiselle Nantes_, daughter of Louis XIV by Madame de Montespan, and wife of the Duc de Bourbon, grandson of the Grand Condé. Her daughter Louise Henriette, who married the Prince de Bourbon Conti, was also painted by Nattier[135]; and by the same artist--one of his best works--is the above-mentioned portrait of _Charlotte Elizabeth Soubise_,[136] the young wife of Louis Joseph, Prince de Condé, represented plucking carnations in the gardens at Chantilly. Nattier's portraits of the Royal Family of Bourbon, both in the Louvre and at Versailles, are very numerous. He painted every one of Louis XV's daughters[137] and many other fair women, who, however, bear a strong general resemblance to one another, whereby his portraits are often rendered conventional and monotonous. It is therefore rather refreshing to turn from Jean Nattier to Desportes and Oudry, who both stand on the threshold of the eighteenth century and who revived realistic landscape painting--an art which had practically lain dormant since the days of Pol de Limbourg; for Claude Lorraine and the Poussins had directed it into wholly diverse channels. _Briados_ and _Balthazar_, two Spanish hounds formerly belonging to the House of Condé, are exquisitely painted by Desportes, who was highly thought of by all lovers of the chase and was a constant guest at the hunting-parties held in the various French châteaux. A painting by him in the Louvre representing a _Huntsman with his dog and bag of game_ standing in a fine landscape shows his skill at its very best.