Jacques-Antoine Beaufort

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About this artist

Very little is known about the life of Jacques-Antoine Beaufort, who probably received his training outside of Paris. In 1756 he was listed as a drawing teacher at the recently opened Académie in Marseille. He was in Paris by 1766, the year he was agréé (accepted) at the Salon; he was accepted into the Académie Royale as an Académicien in 1771. His reception piece, and his most famous painting, was The Oath of Brutus (Nevers, Musée Municipal), the sketch for which is at LACMA. Beaufort exhibited regularly at the Salon from 1767 until 1783. In 1773 he painted one of the ten large-scale paintings depicting events in the life of Saint Louis that were destined for the chapel of the École royale militaire, Paris. Beaufort received a number of commissions from the Bâtiments du Roi for paintings depicting popular historical subjects, including Death of the Chevalier Bayard (Marseille, Musée des Beaux-Arts), exhibited at the Salon of 1781, and The duc de Guise and the Président de Harlay (location unknown), exhibited two years later. The artist’s hopes of having these works translated into tapestries were dashed when they were rejected by the jury of the Gobelins tapestry manufactory. Despite these disappointments, Beaufort received a royal pension the year prior to his death, but died with relatively little notice.