Portrait of P.-A. Caron de Beaumarchais
Medium
Brush and brown wash over graphite underdrawing.
Dimensions
16.8 x 11.7 cm
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949
Accession Number
49.19.98
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, Jean-Baptiste-François Bosio's *Portrait of P.-A. Caron de Beaumarchais* captures the likeness of one of 18th-century France's most colorful figures. Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732–1799), a playwright, watchmaker, and secret agent, penned satirical masterpieces like *The Barber of Seville* and *The Marriage of Figaro*—works that later inspired operas by Rossini and Mozart. Bosio, a neoclassical sculptor and skilled draughtsman active during the Napoleonic era, rendered this intimate portrait in brush and brown was...