(Saint-Hippolyte 1621–1675 Rome)
The aftermath of a battle, in an extensive landscape,
oil on canvas, 107 x 214 cm, framed

Provenance:
Mrs M. Ziegler-Wegmann, Zurich;
Private collection, Zurich;
sale, Fischer, Lucerne, 21 November 1972, lot 2215;
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 12 December 2002, lot 50 (as Jacques Courtois, called il Borgognone);
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 9 December 2009, lot 35 (as Jacques Courtois, called il Borgognone);
Private European collection

Exhibited:
Naples, Gallerie d’Italia, Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano, Rubens, Van Dyck, Ribera: la collezione di un principe, 6 December 2018 – 7 April 2019, cat. no. 7 (as Jacques Courtois)

Literature:
G. Sestieri, ‘Antico’ e ‘moderno’ nella pittura di ‘battaglie’. Contributi al Manciola, a Michelangelo delle Battaglie e al Borgognone, in: Studi sul Barocco romano: scritti in onore di Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, Milan 2004, p. 227, illustrated p. LXXIX (as Jacques Courtois);
V. Borniotto, in: Rubens, Van Dyck, Ribera: la collezione di un principe, exhibition catalogue, ed. by A. E. Denunzio, G. Porzio et alii, Cinisello Balsamo 2018, pp. 92-93, cat. no. 7 (as Jacques Courtois)

In this painting, Jacques Courtois elects to depict the final moments of a battle and thus not to focus on the acme of the conflict’s action, as is more usual in his work. Instead, the end of the battle is shown, and the artist’s attention is turned to the gathering of the dead and care of the wounded. The troops are shown departing the field, leaving the deceased behind to be stripped by the survivors while friars, gathered for the conclusion of the conflict, circulate to give blessings and the last rites: in rendering the crude facts of the scene, the artist achieves a rare intensity of pathos.

The landscape setting is spacious and airy: Jacques Courtois’ composition is decidedly modern, as if captured through a wide-angle lens. Even the broad background plane is described realistically and in detail, while various anecdotal incidents are included, such as the passing waggon crowded with country-folk announced by two trumpeters on horseback, or the friar in the foreground tending to a dying man.

The canvas is primarily played out in shades of ochre-earth tones, highlighted by the white of the horses and the blue and red of the soldier’s uniforms: a typical palette for Jacques Courtois. This painting is a fine example of the artist’s pictorial language, privileging vast panoramic hill or mountain settings characterised by the suffused light of aerial perspective, revealing a sequence of receding spatial planes. It compares, for example, with the pair in the Musei Capitolini, Rome (inv. no PC 54; PC 53) and with the one in private collection, Cento (see G. Sestieri in literature p. LXXIX).

According to Sestieri (see literature) this work fully expresses Courtois’ skills as a painter of pure landscape in a realistic, descriptive vein. Indeed, he often devoted himself to this genre as his biographer Baldinucci observed (see F. Baldinucci, Notizie de’ professori del disegno…, Florence 1681-1728, vol. 6, pp. 417–426). The artist’s study of the works of the Bamboccianti, whom he probably frequented while he was at Rome, is especially evident in the left foreground passage depicting an elderly man of modest means in the company of a child.

Jacques Courtois was born in France, but he worked primarily in Italy, and principally at Rome, where he moved in 1640, coming under the influence there of Aniello Falcone (1607-1665). Courtois was best known for his battle scenes and was regarded by his contemporaries as an absolute specialist of the genre. Before moving to Rome, the painter had taken part in the Baron Charles de Watteville’s military campaigns during which time he experienced battle first-hand and at close quarters. He made drawings of the military action he witnessed , as confirmed by the numerous sheets of studies held today in the British Museum and at the Musée du Louvre.