Guillaume Courtois

Guillaume Courtois (French pronunciation: [ɡijom kuʁtwa]) or italianized as Guglielmo Cortese, called Il Borgognone or Le Bourguignon ('the Burgundian'), (1628 – 14 or 15 June 1679[1][2]) was a Franc-comtois-Italian painter, draughtsman and etcher.

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.

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.

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.

Pietro da Cortona recommended the two brothers to Niccolò Sagredo, the Venetian ambassador in Rome who wished to have the church decorated.

[2] 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.

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.

Courtois reprised the charming female figure in his Fruit Picker (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden), which is a collaboration with Michele Pace del Campidoglio.

[2] 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.