Jean de Court

Jean de Court was an enamel painter of Limoges, who served as official portrait painter to the monarchs of Scotland and France.

In 1567, he is recorded as court painter of Mary Queen of Scots, although it is not clear if he had actually accompanied her to Scotland. In 1572, he succeeded François Clouet as painter to the king at the court of her brother-in-law Charles IX of France, and was in turn succeeded by his son, Charles de Court, in 1584 or 1589. Jean de Court painted in 1574 a portrait of Henry III, then Duke of Anjou.

Noted enamel painter Susanne (de) Court was also most likely a member of this de Court dynasty of enamel painters who ran a workshop over several generations in Limoges. The scenes she painted were often copied from Italian prints. Work by Susanne de Court is characterized by varying tones of blues and greens with white flesh tints, and by a delicate painterly technique. Her work is in the collections of the British Museum, the Frick Collection, the Princeton University Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

Gallery

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  Henry III of France, now at the Musée Condé in the Château de Chantilly

• Jean de Court - Apollo and the Muses - Walters 44207.jpg

  Enamel painting: Apollo and the Muses by Jean de Court

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  Albert de Gondi, now at the Musée Condé

References

This article incorporates text from the article "COURT, Jean de" in Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers by Michael Bryan, edited by Robert Edmund Graves and Sir Walter Armstrong, an 1886–1889 publication now in the public domain.