He enrolled in the Royal Academy in 1703 and applied himself to copying pictures in the Luxembourg Palace, making a series of drawings of the Marie de Médici painting cycle by Peter Paul Rubens.

Between 1715 and 1720 he devoted himself to compositions like the Battle of Pultawa, which he painted for Peter the Great, and the Petrification of Phineus and of his Companions, which led to his election to the Academy.

[1] The financial collapse of 1720 caused by the schemes of Law all but ruined Nattier, who found himself forced to devote his whole energy to portraiture, which was more lucrative.

The most notable examples of his straightforward portraiture are the Marie Leczinska at the Dijon Museum, and the group portrait The Artist Surrounded by His Family, dated 1730.

Nattier's works have been engraved by Alphonse Leroy, Tardieu, Jean Audran (1667–1756), Dupin and many other noted craftsmen.The 1753 Marquis de Marigny is in the collection of the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe.