Joseph-Désiré Court, a painter of historical subjects and portraits, was born at Rouen in 1797. He became a pupil at the École des Beaux-Arts under Gros, and after carrying off the principal honours there pursued his studies still further at Rome. High expectations were formed of him when he exhibited in 1827 'The Death of Caesar,' a work manifesting earnest thought, and a conscientious handling of the facts of history. This is now preserved in the Louvre. Having shown himself in this and other works a vigorous painter, capable of seizing a subject with a masterly grasp, and having also in the region of portrait painting proved himself an artist of no common merit, he eventually dissipated his talents in the production of a series of empty official pictures painted by order of Louis Philippe. He died in Paris in 1865. The Bordeaux Museum has a portrait of Henri Fonfrède by him; that of Lyons, a 'Scene in the Deluge'; that of Rouen, ' Boissy-d'Anglas saluting the head of Féraud.'
This article incorporates text from the article "COURT, Joseph Désiré" 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.