Resumen de Antoine Dubost's 'Sword of Damocles' and Thomas Hope: an Anglo-French skirmish
Recently rediscovered in Mumbai, India, French artist Antoine Dubost's 1804 painting Sword of Damocles led to an unusually well-documented, bizarre affair that involved some of London's leading personalities. After moving to England in 1806 and settling in London, Dubost sold this painting to Dutch merchant and collector Thomas Hope, who displayed it in his famous London town house. The painter and the patron soon had an irreparable falling out, however, over the decision to hang the painting alongside a work by former Royal Academy president Benjamin West, perhaps prompting critical comparison and therefore spurring West's envy or jealousy. Another reason for the falling out could have been the clash of two strong-headed personalities whose relationship continued to deteriorate as Hope reduced Dubost's painting and effaced his signature, and Dubost subsequently satirized Hope and his wife in a painting entitled Beauty and the Beast, which led to a feud that continued even after Dubost's return to Paris in January 1813.
