(1753 - 1827), connoisseur and amateur painter, o. s. of Sir George Beaumont of Great Dunmow, Essex and Coleorton, Leics; suc. fa. 1762 as 7th Bt.; educ. Eton and New Coll. Oxf., 1772; m. 1778 Margaret Willes, (?1755 - 1829); Dilettanti 1784; MP 1790 - 6.
1782 - 3 [dep. England May 1782] Turin (1 Sep. 1782), Bologna (15 Sep.), Perugia (25 Sep.), Spoleto, Rome (c.6 - 16 Oct.), Alban Hills (c.17 Oct. - c.6 Nov.), Rome (c.6 Nov. 1782 - 6 Mar. 1783), Naples (c.9 - 22 Mar.), Terracina (24 - 25 Mar.), Rome (27 Mar. - 26 Apr.), Tivoli (27 Apr. - 12 May), Rome, Venice (27 May), Como (6 Jun.)
A disciple of Reynolds and an admirer of Wilson (who for him remained the painter of Rome), Beaumont went to Italy with his wife in 1782. He caught a cold crossing the Channel (and ever after suffered a recurrent fever), but was able to make a series of rough sketches on their journey south (their itinerary is provided by drawings still in the Beaumont collection), marking their arrival in Rome with a drawing of the Campo Vaccino. In Rome the Beaumonts stayed at Margherita's and they were very social. The young John Ramsay frequently met them between 18 December 1782 and 29 March 1783 with, for example, Lord St Asaph, and sometimes James Byres and Philipp Hackert.1 In March 1783 the Beaumonts visited Naples where their old friend Thomas Jones accompanied them by boat, sketching the coast of Posillipo.2
Beaumont was prepared to study the old master collections in Rome (Michelangelo and Claude became his passion) and he drew the usual sights, often in the company of artists.3 Lady Beaumont, highly cultured and fluent in Italian, also became a skilled copyist of old master drawings (one of her copies after Carracci is in the Ashmolean Museum). Beaumont took painting lessons from Zucchi and Jacob More4 (two of his thinly painted landscapes were sold in 1985 [Christie's, 18 Oct.]), and he was in touch with Angelica Kauffman, Philipp Hackert, Gavin Hamilton, Allan Ramsay and probably Carlo Labruzzi. Beaumont's first fine drawings are of Lago Albano (17 October), L'Arricia, Morino, and Lake Nemi (2 November). His best and largest pencil and wash drawings date from a spring fortnight in Tivoli and owe much to the example of J.R. Cozens, who had arrived in Rome in December 1782 and was a frequent companion. At some date Beaumont, who supported Cozens in his decline, acquired the Cozens album of tracings and several watercolours and oils.5 Nothing is known of the painting Beaumont requested of More,4 nor of the unfinished view of Velletri, a gift from Jones who refused a commission.2
In 1786, three years after the Beaumonts had returned to England, Jacob More failed to obtain for him two minor Claudes from the Barberini collection. Beaumont's considerable connoisseurship dated from this Italian tour and it was his great sorrow that the Napoleonic war and poor health delayed a return to 'this enchanted ground' until 1822.
1. Ramsay jnl.MSS (18 Dec. 1782; 26, 27 Feb.; 29 Mar. 1783). 2. Jones Memoirs, 121. 3. See F. Owen and D.B. Brown, Collector of Genius, A Life of Sir G. Beaumont. 4. More letters MSS, c.Oct. 1786, c.Jun. 1787. 5. Sloan, Cozens, 151 - 3.
F. O.