Guillaume Courtois

Guillaume Courtois (1628 - Jun 15, 1679) or italianized as Guglielmo Cortese, called Il Borgognone or Le Bourguignon, was a French-Italian painter, draughtsman and etcher He was mainly active in Rome as a history and staffage painter and enjoyed high-level patronage He was the brother of the painters Jacques Courtois and Jean-François Courtois

Brother of Jesuit painter Jacques Courtois, was nicknamed the Borgognone He worked mainly in Rome

Guillaume Courtois was born in Saint-Hippolyte, Doubs in France as the son of the obscure painter Jean-Pierre Courtois Very little is known about Guillaume’s youth but it is assumed he received his initial training from his father He came to Italy together with his father and brother when he was still a child He moved to Rome in 1638 and studied at Pietro da Cortona, practicing drawing from the real and copying works by Giovanni Lanfranco and Andrea Sacchi He also studied the painters of Bolognese and Guercino and took on a classical style with a slight obvious mannerism, in part similar to that of Carlo Maratta

Initially a fast operator, he was underestimated because he could not finish his paintings Then a work made for the Ambassador of Venice allowed him to become acquainted with the talented painter who was and gave him praise from Pietro da Cortona himself It was then commissioned to frescoes in San Giovanni in Laterano, in the gallery of the Quirinal Palace (The Battle of Joshua), in Santa Prassede (the vault of the Cesi Chapel, now dedicated to St Pius X, with blessed God and Saints)

He performed several blood tests demonstrating his special attention to the preparation of figures for his paintings and drawings designed with pen, ink and watercolor

He also worked in co-operation with his brother, performing some works for the Jesuit convents He collaborated with Gian Lorenzo Bernini during the pontificate of Alexander VII, obtaining commissions for the decoration of churches in Rome and in the district

The movements of the brothers Courtois are not very well documented, which has led to alternative theories It is possible Guillaume Courtois settled in Rome by 1638 where he entered the studio of Pietro da Cortona Here he is supposed to have supplemented his training by drawing from life and copying works of Giovanni Lanfranco and Andrea Sacchi He studied also the Bolognese painters and Guercino, and formed for himself a classicizing style with very little express mannerism, partly resembling that of Carlo Maratta Another view of the movements of the brothers that has gained support with modern scholars is that Guillaume and Jacques remained together until the later 1640s and that Guillaume Courtois only came under the influence of da Cortona when he worked under him in 1656

Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911 found that "his technique in design is better than that of Jacques, but he does not rival him in spirit, color or composition"

Guillaume Courtois spent most of his active life in Rome where he died of gout on 15 June 1679

Work:
Guillaume Courtois was mainly a history painter of Christian religious and mythological scenes He was also in demand as a staffage painter He is sometimes referred to as a battle painter because of his involvement in the decorative project in the chapel of the Congregation of the Jesuits, a small oratory housed in a room of the Collegio Romano adjacent to the Sant'Ignazio Church, Rome This was a collaborative effort of the brothers Guillaume and Jacques It is now established that Jacques - who was a specialist in battle scenes - painted the battles in the backgrounds Guillaume painted the scenes that depict victories attributed to the intervention of the Virgin: Heraclius defeats the armies of Chosroes, St Pulcheria, The Triumph of Emperor Zimisches, The Battle of Louis IX of France, and Julian the Apostate pierced by Saint Mercurius Early drawings of Guillaume Courtois represent battle scenes and show that he was initially influenced by his brother He also produced a few portraits and collaborated with other artists on genre paintings

Courtois’ first major public commissions were frescoes for the San Marco, Rome Pietro da Cortona recommended the two brothers to Niccolò Sagredo, the Venetian ambassador in Rome who wished to have the church decorated He painted the Battle of Joshua for the Gallery of Alexander VII in the Quirinal Palace and the Martyrdom of St Andrew for the high altar of the Sant'Andrea al Quirinale

These early works show the influence of Cortona, combined with the influence of the Baroque style of Agostino Carracci through the mediation of the more dynamic version offered by Giovanni Lanfranco’s work These influences are reflected in the exuberance in form and color that will remain characteristic of Courtois’ work The style of Pier Francesco Mola also formed a factor in his development He also worked alongside Mola, Gaspard Dughet, Francesco Cozza, and Giovanni Battista Tassi on the decoration of the Valmontone Palace of Camillo Francesco Maria Pamphili around 1658-1659 Some figures painted by Courtois in this Palace were previously attributed to Mola

In 1661, he painted an Assumption for the church of San Tommaso da Villanova in Castelgandolfo in Ozzola

In his mature work he further showed the influence of Carlo Maratta, an artist who fused the Baroque and Classicist styles This is reflected in the sweet faces of the female figures in works such as the Madonna of the Rosary for the St George Church in Monte Porzio Catone made in 1666 on a commission by prince Giovanni Battista Borghese

Collaborations:
In addition to the frequent collaborations with his brother Jacques, a number of collaborations between Guillaume Courtois and Abraham Brueghel, a Flemish still life painter active in Rome, are recorded An example is the Still life of fruits and flowers with a figure (Sold at Sotheby's on 29 January 2015 in New York, lot 302) The still life was painted by Brueghel while Courtois painted the figure The painting is a variant of the Grapes and pomegranate with a vase of flowers and a female figure (private collection), which has been dated to the end of the 1660s Courtois reprised the charming female figure in his Fruit Picker (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden), which is a collaboration with Michele Pace del Campidoglio He also collaborated frequently on public works with Bernini, who admired his work and recommended him for commissions, and Carlo Maratta

In 1653 he painted the figures of St Eustace, the Good Samaritan, a St Mary of Egypt and St Augustine in four large landscapes of Gaspard Dughet This was one of the earliest documented commissions of Courtois and the patron was Camillo Francesco Maria Pamphili The next year Courtois and Dughet collaborated again for the same patron on works for the Palazzo Pamphilj

Drawings:
Guillaume Courtois was a very skilled draughtsman as is testified by the many preparatory studies he left behind and which can be found, amongst others, in the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica Preparatory drawings are generally in chalk, whereas compositional designs tend to be in pen and ink and wash

The preparatory studies in chalk (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm and the Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf) for The Martyrdom of St Mark fresco in San Marco are very skillful and demonstrate a fluid technique and a firm grasp of form and chiaroscuro
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