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Sir George Beaumont

Image credit: The National Gallery, London

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Sir George Beaumont (1753–1827), the National Gallery’s first great benefactor, is portrayed here at the age of 50. He is dressed in black with a glimpse of white waistcoat showing above a white stock against a plain crimson background. The restricted colour palette adds to the portrait’s drama. Beaumont built up a relatively small but well-chosen collection of paintings, chiefly by Italian, French and Dutch masters and was instrumental in the foundation of the National Gallery. He told the government that if they bought the collection of Sir John Julius Angerstein, he would donate 16 paintings from his own collection ‘whenever the Gallery about to be erected is ready to receive them’. In 1824, the National Gallery opened to the public and in 1826 Beaumont’s paintings hung there with Angerstein’s.

The National Gallery, London

London

Title

Sir George Beaumont

Date

1803

Medium

Oil on canvas

Measurements

H 77.5 x W 63.9 cm

Accession number

NG6333

Acquisition method

Bequeathed by Claude Dickason Rotch, 1962

Work type

Painting

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The National Gallery, London

Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England

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