When confronted by Emir Bashir, Sham'un exhibited courage and rectitude and justified his act by saying that it was his duty to tutor and educate the princes so that they become worthy of their father's standing.

and rewarded him with a large purse of gold coins and a permanent appointment as court clerk and instructor which Sham'un would occupy for the next eighteen years of his life.

From then on Sham'un was known as Al-Corm (or Al-Qurm meaning "The Trunk"), an epithet and title that stuck to him and eventually turned to be a retronym, replacing his Hokayem surname.

Corm's talent was furthered in his apprenticeship in the Jesuit college,[3][11][14][15] where the friars pushed him to pursue painting studies in Rome's fine art academy.

[17] In 1870, after several days of foot travel, the eighteen years old Corm arrived in Beirut where he boarded a French ship headed to Naples.

[20][21] On 24 July 1874, Daoud dispatched a letter to his family informing them that his travel companion to Rome, father Rukoz, promised to introduce him to pope Pius IX.

The reforms, along with low import duties for foreign merchants,[a] the establishment of the Ottoman Imperial Bank in 1850, the building of the new wharf, the construction of the Beirut-Damascus road and the population surge following the 1860 Lebanon conflict made Beirut the unrivaled port city of the Levant.

[27] Among Corm's first aristocratic Beiruti clients were the Sursocks a rich Greek Orthodox merchant family that demonstrated its cultural capital by investing in art patronage.

Other clients were no less notable and included Hussein Beyhum, the president of the Syrian scientific association and deputy in the Ottoman house of representatives; Jurji Zaydan, novelist and journalist, most noted for his creation of the al-Hilal magazine; Viscount Philippe de Tarrazi (1917), a polymath, philanthropist, the founder of the National Library of Lebanon and the curator of the National Museum; Butrus al-Bustani a leading figure in the al-Nahda literary movement,[28] and Ibrahim al- Yaziji an illustrious philologist and journalist.

His shop, called Maison d'Art (House of art) was a commercial success and later included a darkroom for developing pictures of the first handheld cameras.

[30] During his formative years in Rome, Corm spent much of his time in the city's museums copying the facial expressions and hand gestures of the Renaissance masters' works.

According to Lahoud, Corm rid Lebanese religious art from a traditionalist, local neo-gothic style and, by introducing classical painting, started a movement of academic art-making in Beirut.