Reportedly, the canvas was signed and dated 1738 on the reverse. The traditional identification of the sitter as Louise Henriette de Bourbon-Conti is not tenable and the picture, which is rather loosely and fluidly painted, was probably made for the art market. In the catalogue of the 1918 Paris sale of the vicomte de Curel, where the picture first appeared, it was said to have been signed and dated Nattier 1738 on the reverse (the inscription is no longer visible owing to the presence of a lining canvas). The sitter was identified as the princesse de Bourbon-Conti. Nattier specialized in a form of allegorical guise whereby his sitters, often shown as here in a white chemise, were presented as goddesses or personifications. The presence of reeds and a vessel from which water flows identify this young woman as the spring, or "la source." The proposed identification depends upon comparison with other portraits, notably one showing the duchesse de Chartres, as she then was, as Hebe (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), which is signed and dated 1744. On this basis, it must be set aside, as there is no resemblance. [Katharine Baetjer 2014] (http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437184)