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Guillaume COURTOIS, called IL BORGOGNONE
(Saint-Hippolyte, 1628 - Rome, 1679)
Venus, Mars and Adonis
Oil on canvas
69 x 77 cm (88 x 93,5 cm with the frame)
Provenance:
New York, Sotheby's, 7 April 1989, no. 89
Milan, Finarte, 25 novembre 1998, no. 50
Bibliography:
V. Di Giuseppe Di Paolo, “Guillaume Courtois nel cantiere di Nettuno e lo stile del Sesto Decennio”, In Storia dell'Arte, no. 137/138, Rome 2014, pp. 110-117 (repr. fig. 7)
Guillaume Courtois borrows the group of Venus and Mars from a fresco by Giulio Romano (c. 1492-1546) in the Palazzo Te (ill. 3), which he reinterprets within a vast landscape context, heavily influenced by his years of collaboration with Pier Francesco Mola (1612-1666) and Gaspard Dughet (1625-1675). The figure of Adonis, on the other hand, is an invention of Il Borgognone, for which a preparatory study is preserved in the Fine Arts and Archaeology Museum of Besançon (ill. 2).
It is worth noting that the final figure features a variation in the position of the left arm compared to the preparatory drawing; the artist ultimately favoured a pose similar to that of the Barberini Faun, which had been discovered not long before.
Guillaume Courtois appropriates these cross influences (antiquity and mannerism), reworking them in light of the innovations of his time, and delivers a highly contrasted work, balancing violence and tenderness. On one hand, the group of Venus and Mars conveys all the drama of the scene: the tumult of their struggle is rendered through the turbulent draperies and plume as well as the tense contortion of the god's figure. On the other hand, the relatively small characters are depicted in an Arcadian nature that exudes great serenity. In this setting, the figure of Adonis (ill.1) serves as a perfect foil to the first group: in a languid pose, with his bare shoulder and a puppy nestled against him, he ignores his dog’s warning and sleeps peacefully.
Full description available on request
