A Battle Scene
Jacques Courtois (Saint-Hippolyte 1621 - Rome 1676)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1645 - 1676
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
813 x 1144 mm (32 x 45 in)
Place of origin
Italy
Order this imageCollection
Stourhead, Wiltshire
NT 732091
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, A Battle Scene by Jacques Courtois, known as Il Borgognone (Saint Hippolyte 1621 - Rome 1676). In the foreground at the far left, a man on the ground, possibly a Turkish soldier, is being trampled by horses. He wears red robes and a cone-shaped hat trimmed with fur has fallen from his head. He holds a scimitar in his right hand. Above him is a chestnut horse ridden by a man wearing blue and yellow plumes in his hat and to the right, a white horse rears up on its hind legs, it's rider, another Turkish man presumably, having fallen from its back. Above, a mounted figure in a suit of armour draws back his right arm and thrusts his sword towards another. More cavalrymen with swords raised are crowded around these figures at the left side of the image. A plume of black smoke rises behind them in the distance at the far left. A dead or dying white horse lies on the ground at centre right and beside it are two dead bodies. Mounted cavalrymen, some wearing armour and firing muskets can be seen beyond the bodies in the distance at the far right.
Provenance
Possibly bought in 1750 by Henry Hoare II (1705-85); certainly in house by 1762 according to Horace Walpole; given to the National Trust along with the house, its grounds, and the rest of contents by Sir Henry Hugh Arthur Hoare, 6th Bt (1865 – 1947) in 1946.
Credit line
Stourhead, The Hoare Collection (The National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Verso: In white paint on back of frame (but not new stretcher (1963) which has a Freeman label): 422
Makers and roles
Jacques Courtois (Saint-Hippolyte 1621 - Rome 1676) , artist
References
Walpole 1927-28 Paget Toynbee (ed.), 'Horace Walpole's Journals of Visits to Country Seats, etc.', 1760-62, Walpole Society XVI, 1927 -28 pp. 9-80, p.42 Stourhead 1785 Schedule of Pictures left by Henry Hoare at his death, 1785 Colt Hoare 1818 Sir Richard Colt Hoare, A Description of the House and Gardens at Stourhead...with a Catalogue of the Pictures, Salisbury 1800, Bath 1818, rev. 1822, 51 Hoare 1822 Sir Richard Colt Hoare, History of Modern Wiltshire (Hundred of Mere),1822 , p.77 Stourhead 1838: Inventory of Heir-Looms at Stourhead directed to be taken by the Will of the late Sir Richard Colt Hoare Bart. with the state and condition thereof, 1838 , No.392 Waagen 1854-7: Gustav Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, 3 vols. (translated by Lady Eastlake) with a supplementary volume: Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, London, 1854-7, p.172 Stourhead 1898 Alda, Lady Hoare, Catalogue of Principal Paintings & Drawings at Stourhead July 6th 1898 (Ms.typescript), 1898 , p.17 Stourhead Wiltshire, 1992: List of Pictures, [National Trust; Anthony Mitchell & Alastair Laing] 1992 , p14