# Allegory of Justice Punishing Injustice [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [NATTIER, Jean-Marc]() - Date: 1701-1750 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 133 x 161 cm ## Commentary This painting is one of Nattier's most important royal commissions, and an equally impressive and rare surviving example of his work in a vein other than portraiture. It was commissioned by Jean-Philippe d'Orléans \(1702-1748\), the Grand Master or Grand Prieur of the Knights of the Order of Malta in France for the decoration of his Parisian residence the Palais du Temple. Of the seven paintings of the decoration, recorded by his biographers, only three are now known representing cardinal virtues, Fortitude, Prudence, and Justice. The present work was the first of the three, and was installed in the Salon of the Temple early in 1737. The painting is called Madame Adélaide as Justice, because the sitter was assumed to be Madame Adélaide, daughter of Louis XV. However, it is not documented, the figures of the virtues are anonymous, with no identification other than the allegory they embody. ## Related artworks - [Comtesse de Tillières]() - [Comtesse Tessin]() - [Henriette of France as Flora]() - [Joseph Bonnier de la Mosson]() - [Judgment of Paris]() - [Madame Bouret as Diana]() - [Madame Henriette]() - [Madame la Comtesse d'Argenson]() - [Madame Le Fèvre de Caumartin as Hebe]() - [Madame Marsollier and her Daughter]() - [Madame Victoire]() - [Mademoiselle de Clermont "en Sultane"]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()