Dec 8, 2025
‘Portrait of a man’, who was 18th-century Corsican independence leader, goes on sale | Art
Thirty years ago, a painting by the British artist Sir William Beechey was sold as “portrait of a man”. The anonymous buyer, however, knew precisely who the unnamed man in the picture was: Pascal Paoli, the 18th-century Corsican independence leader and icon of the Enlightenment. Since that sale in April 1994, the Beechey portrait of the man credited with giving his Mediterranean island a modern…
