Lot 71: Claudio Francesco Beaumont (1694-1766)

A standing male nude in a boat (Charon?)
black chalk, heightened with white chalk, on dark grey-green paper
530 x 330mm

Claudio Francesco Beaumont (originally Bomone) was one of the leading painters in Turin in the 18th century. Little is known of his artistic training until 1714 when he was in Rome for four years and came under the influence of Francesco Trevisani. After returning from a second visit to Rome in 1731, he was appointed by Carl Emanuele III of Savoy and commissioned to fresco various rooms in the Palazzo Reale. This was a huge project which established his reputation and was to occupy him, on and off, for the rest of his career. As well as the Palazzo Reale decoration, he produced designs for tapestries to be made by the newly established tapestry manufacturers in Turin.He was also much in demand for religious commissions, particularly in his later years, painting altarpieces in many churches in Turin and the surrounding Piedmont.
His drawings are rare.The largest grouping in a public collection is an important album of studies in the Museo Civico, Turin. Comparable to the present sheet is a study of a nude man executed in black and white chalk on blue-green paper in a Berlin private collection (published in Hein-Th. Schulze-Altcappenburg, Eine unbekannte Sammlung italienischer Zeichnungen aus Berliner Privatbesitz, exhibition catalogue, Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, 1997-1998, p.80, no. 22, pl.41). Another comparable drawing was at Sotheby's, London, 3 July, 1995, lot 80.