the grand tour collection of coke final paper
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Nicole Smith
Professor Redford
AH 326 Final Paper
April 29th 2010
From Italy to Norfolk: The Grand Tour Collection of Thomas Coke
In 1712, a young English man, Thomas Coke, embarked on the zenith of his
cultural and social breeding in the form of the European grand tour. The grand tour
represented for Coke, as it did for most upper class educated men, the culmination of
their formal education and the fulfillment of those experiences and studies which would
equip these young travelers with the intellectual, cultural and social skills needed upon
their return home. The grand tour served as a means of distinguishing oneself as an
erudite scholar, connoisseur and authority and an opportunity to cultivate an educated
self-confidence in history and the arts. For an English Grand-Tourist such as Thomas
Coke this involved the commissioning, collecting and displaying of both classical and
contemporary works from the Europe including sculpture, paintings, drawings, rare
books and manuscripts. The collecting and display of these art objects was in fact a
vehicle of veneration for both the maker and the collector. This catalogue, representing
some of the most prominent objects of Coke’s European grand tour collection, aims to
highlight the significance of these works as they relate to Coke’s experiences during his
tour in Italy. In this way, each art object is here contextualized by its date and place of
acquisition as they fall into the chronology of Coke’s journey. The second half of this
paper focuses on the comprehensive collection as it was installed at Coke’s estate at
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Holkham in Norfolk during the late 18th century and, furthermore, the arrangement and
dramatic augmentation of the collection after Coke’s return to England.
At the age of fifteen, Thomas Coke departed from England on August 12th,
1712 in the company of his guardian and tutor, Dr. Thomas Hobart, and his servant
Edward Jarret. The tour lasted nearly six years, incorporating travel and study in
Italy, France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Switzerland. Coke’s collecting in
these countries, primarily in Italy, is of particular significance to scholarly research
concerning 18th century English grand tourists since, during the tour, Edward Jarret
kept a comprehensive itinerary and detailed account books of Coke’s travel
expenses and purchases. Coke’s tour commenced with travel in France, before he
arrived in northern Italy in November of 1713. After three months between Turin,
Genoa, Pisa, Florence and Venice, Thomas Coke arrived for the first time in the city
of Rome in February of 1714. It was by June of that year that Thomas Coke met
English architect William Kent and the two began what was to become a life long
association. Coke and Kent traveled together during the summer of 1714 between
Rome, Naples, Florence, Bologna and Padua and it was during this time that Coke
began collecting and commissioning paintings. Jarret’s records account for the
purchase of four works by Italian artist and architect Pietro da Cortona and, also, the
commissioning of Tarquin Raping Lucretia by Andrea Procaccini.1 The Procaccini
painting would become one among many works commissioned by Coke during his
1 John Ingamells, Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 225.
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time in Rome and Naples during 1714.2 Some other acquisitions during this time in
Rome include Perseus and Andromeda and The Continence of Scipio by Giuseppe
Bartolomeo Chiari and Francesco Solimena’s Deborah and Barak. In both the Procaccini
painting as well as Chiari’s Continence of Scipio a representation of Coke can be found
among the figures in the scene, a tradition that was commonplace for patrons who wished
to demonstrate a more powerful association with the themes and characters of these
classical tales. Christopher Christie suggests in his account of Coke’s commissioning of
Italian paintings that these themes “concerned with benevolent conquerors and captives,
raped or unjustly retained, may indicate a resistance to royal oppression,” and are further
associated with Coke’s own beliefs due to his inclusion in the paintings.3 By July of
1714, Coke and Kent had arrived in Venice. Again, Coke demonstrated he love for
pictures by having his portrait done by the renowned Venetian portrait painter Rosablba
Carriera.4 Even in the early stages of his young collecting, Coke showed a passion for
finding and assembling the best Italy had to offer.
Between August and December of 1714, Coke and his companions traveled again
in northern Italy stopping in Vicenza, Verona, Moderna, and Parma before arriving in
Turin where a reluctant sixteen year old Coke enrolled in the Academy at Turin to study
fencing and horseback riding.5 Although, this period of enrollment at the Academy
should not suggest that Coke’s passionate habit of collecting was disrupted. In addition to
Kent’s continued collecting throughout Italy on his behalf, Coke also used his time in
2 Christopher Christie, The British Country House in the Eighteenth Century, (Manchester, NY: Manchester University Press, 2000), 209. 3 Christie, The British Country House in the Eighteenth Century, 209. 4 Ingamells, Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800, 225. This portrait is accounted for among Jarret’s records, however, today its unknown. 5 Ibid, 225.
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Turin to purchase what were to become some of the most prominent additions to the
Holkham Library of his father, Sir Edward Coke.6 Over the course of his grand tour and
well after he returned to England, Coke was an ardent collector of both manuscripts and
rare books.
After his departure from the Academy in April of 1715, Coke passed the
remainder of the year in France and Germany before heading back to Italy via Sicily.7 By
1716 he had reunited In Naples with his colleague and art dealer William Kent. Again,
Coke’s time between Naples and Rome saw the dramatic accumulation of original works
by Italian painters including works by Francesco Solimena and Sebastiano Conca. Vision
of Aeneas in the Elysian Fields, the Conca painting commissioned by Coke in the fall of
1716, is a great example of Coke’s position as a patron of the arts (Figure 1). In the
Figure 1: Vision of Aeneas in the Elysian Fields by Sebastiano Conca, 1716. The figure in the white
robes on the left is the poet Virgil represented by Coke. 6 T.C. Skeat, “Manuscripts and Printed Books from the Holkham Hall Library,” The British Museum Quarterly 17, no. 2 (Aug., 1952), 23. 7 Ingamells Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800, 225.
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scene, Aeneas looks out into the fields while Coke, again taking on a character within the
painting, is shown as the poet Virgil playing a lyre. While Christie speculates that Coke’s
identify in the painting could very well be that of Orpheus, it seems more likely that Coke
as a young milordi would want to be associated with Virgil as an intelligent and masterful
author and the epitome of Augustan values.8 Another means by which English tourist
sought to preserve and transport the ideals and beauty of the Rome and the Italian world
was through the purchase of vedutas. The Italian veduta acts as both a landscape and
genre scene, capturing the amalgamation of both the ancient and contemporary
topography of Italy. While in Rome, Coke purchased the first of what would become
seven vedutas by Dutch painter Gaspar van Wittle, or Vanvitelli as he was later known. It
is with the acquisition of these grand history paintings and Italian vedutas that the truly
extensive character of his collection begins to take shape.
Coke’s summer in Rome during 1716 proved fruitful in producing not only great
examples of Italian painting, but also in drawings, manuscripts and sculpture. During
August and September of that year, Coke was able to procure a folio of drawings by
Raphael, including the cartoon for Virgin and Child with the Infant St. John, for 50
crowns.9 In addition to this collection, Coke also acquired drawings by Poussin, Ribera,
Veronese and Bernini. In this way, Coke, like most English grand tourist, was able to
demonstrate both his knowledge of and reverence for the works of the great masters.
Along with these drawings he also made his first two purchases of classical sculpture, the
Lucius Antonius and the Artemis.10 These classical works were testaments to both
8 Christie, The British Country House in the Eighteenth Century, 209. 9 Michaelis, Adolf.Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1882), 58. 10 Ibid, 58.
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antiquity and the contemporary hands that restored them. Bought for around 900 crowns
from the Casa Consiglieri, the sculpture of the goddess Artemis is believed to be a 2nd
century AD copy of a 4th century BC original.11 Known now as Coke’s most expensive
purchase while in Rome, both Artemis and the Lucius Antonius represent two of the most
impressive examples of classical sculpture exported from Rome to England in the 18th
century.12 These examples of classical art, however, form only the underpinning for the
abundance of valuable pieces Coke and his associates would gather in the following
years.
After a short tour of Bologna, Coke returned to Rome in January of 1717.13 His
collection continued to grow through the employment of Kent and other agents
throughout Italy. That year, Coke collected drawings and architectural plans for the
Palace of Farnese and even took time to study architecture under Giacomo Mariaria.14
Coke continued to accumulate works of classical sculpture, pictures, paintings and
manuscripts as he built his own identity as a lover of art and culture. In this year he
acquired a superb and extensive collection of scientific writings by Leonardo da Vinci,
which were to become known as the Codex Liecester.
Coke’s growing collection of history paintings, Italian vedutas and rare
manuscripts ensured that upon his return to England he would be respected and admired
as a wealthy nobleman of social poise and power. However, the true power of social and
cultural representation through painting is best exemplified in the grand tour swagger
11 Ibid, 308. 12 Ingamells, Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800, 226. 13 Ibid, 226. 14 Michael Wilson, William Kent: Architect, Designer, Painter and Gardener (1685-1748), (London/Melbourne: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), 25.
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portrait. It was during this time that Coke sat for Francesco Trevisani for what has
become a lasting image of the experiences and identity of Thomas Coke, or as he was
named in 1744, the 1st Earl of Liecester. Shown sitting upon an ornate gold chair, Coke is
portrayed in a typical organization of pose, costume and props. The lavish robes of the
sitter, the colorful drapes and the obedient pug under the hand of its master recall those
same elements found in Titian, Van Dyck and, later, Batoni portraits.15 Again, Coke
illustrates his love and appreciation for classical sculpture as the Farnese Hercules and
the Venus de’ Medici are exhibited in the background (Figure 2).16 In June of 1717, Coke
left Italy and continued his grand tour in Vienna, Prauge, Dresden and Paris until his
Figure 2: Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Liecester by Francesco Trevisani, 1717.
return home to England in May of 1718. Even though his tour had ended, his collecting 15 Brinsley Ford, “Italy and the Grand Tour at Norwich,” The Burlington Magazine 100, no. 666 (Sep., 1958), 318. 16 Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500-1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 62.
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continued and even intensified as he maintained a working association with his collectors
in Italy.
It is upon Coke’s return to England, after his marriage and establishment as a
wealthy and influential landowner and patron of the arts, that his extensive collection of
grand tour spolia finds its rightful place among the halls, galleries and rooms of Holkham
Hall. Employing the architectural talents of Richard Boyle the 3rd Earl of Burlington, his
longtime associate William Kent and Norfolk architect Matthew Brettingham, Coke
began the initial conceptions of a new mansion house on his Holkham estate in Norfolk,
intended to house and display his extensive collections and libraries (Figure 3). Due to
financial troubles, the building of Holkham Hall from conception to completion took over
Figure 3: Plan of Holkham Hall by William Kent, c1735. Plan listed as: (A) Marble Hall, (B) Saloon,
(C) Statue Gallery, (D) Dining Hall, (E) South Portico, and (F) Library.
30 years with Thomas Coke passing only five years before its achievement.17 Yet, it
17 Charles Warburton James, Chief Justice Coke: His Family & Descendants at Holkham, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929).
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stands today, as Coke and his associated had designed, as a Palladian style country house
grand in both structure and content.
The building of Holkham Hall was, in a way, both the product and effect of
Thomas Coke’s ever growing collection of art. In fact, some of the most eminent and
venerated objects on display at Holkham are the result of major purchases and exports
conducted after Coke’s grand tour.18 The placement of these sculptures and paintings was
dictated by a schematic plan of contrast and connection between the individual works and
the architectural design.19 In the years after 1718, both Mathew Brettingham and Consul
Jospeh Smith continued to act as Thomas Coke’s collectors in his search and assemblage
of one of the finest collections of ancient statuary in England. Brettingham was able to
acquire eleven statues, eight busts, a relief and a few mosaics on Coke’s behalf,
amounting in a comprehensive and representative collection of Italian statuary art.20
There is a symbiotic relationship between the architectural design and the arrangement of
the sculptural collection.21 The restrained colors and simplicity of the Palladian-style long
galleries, the niches, shelves and doorways along the halls and the art works which fill
them are each worked together into striking plans and themes.
Holkham’s Marble Hall is the grand central entrance hall of Coke’s country
mansion distinguished by its white marble staircase and encompassing colonnades. Here
are exhibited some of the wonderful examples of both ancient and post-Roman sculpture
from Coke’s collection. Among the niches is a restored statue of Julia Mamaea and a
18 Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, 71. 19 Elizabeth Angelicoussis, The Holkham Collection of Classical Sculptures, (Philipp von Zabern, 2001). 20 Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, 71. 21 Angelicoussis, The Holkham Collection of Classical Sculptures, 22.
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Sytar Playing Cymbols, both bought by Coke during his grand tour.22 Other pieces on
display in this grand hall, purchased later through Brettingham, include a restored marble
statue of Septimus Servius. Coke’s collection of classical sculpture is, however, most
admirably displayed in the long Statue Gallery of Holkham, which runs the length of the
central block. The austere yet elegant gallery shines as an example of Palladian design.
All of the statues within this space are Roman and are examples of works from the 1st
through the 3rd century AD, although most are likely more accurately described as
modern copies or restorations.23 Among these statues is the fragmental Apollo purchased
by Coke while in Italy, the well-preserved Sielenos the Faun and a statue of Dionysos,
both restored by Cavaceppi, and of course the famous Artemis.24 Other significant
examples of Italian sculpture in Coke’s collection are the Poseidon, the Venus Gentrix
and an interesting bust of Thucydides, all displayed in the long Statue Gallery.25The space
is tailored to the sculptures it holds and balanced by its muted colors against its marble
inhabitants.
Holkham Hall also houses and displays Coke’s extensive collection of paintings.
Works by Titian, Van Dyck, Chiari, Cortona, Rubens line the walls of the public saloon
and the private quarters of the house.26 In the Saloon, Anthony Van Dyck’s Duke of
Arenburg on Horseback is prominently showcased against the deep red wall hangings
along with Rubens’ Return of the Holy Family from Egypt. Coke’s display of these works
in this reception area offered a point of conversation and admiration for his guests.
Another significant piece in Coke’s collection is Titian’s Venus and the Lute Player that
22 Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, 304-305. 23 Angelicoussis, The Holkham Collection of Classical Sculptures, 52. 24 Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, 304-309. 25 Ibid, 71. 26 Christie, The British Country House in the Eighteenth Century, 210.
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the young Coke had purchased early in his grand tour.27 Today, Venus and the Lute
Player is part of the collection of the metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In the
same way Coke constructed and arranged his Statue Gallery to enable a balance and
correlation among the sculpture and the architecture, the Landscape Room at the south
front of Holkham is held together by its themes and display. This room, lit by a grand
Venetian window, houses the many landscape and Italian vedutas of Coke’s collection,
including works by Poussin, Vanvitelli, Dominichino, and Claude Lorraine.28 The
Landscape Room offers both English and Italian views, domesticating the Venetian and
Roman vedutas of Coke’s tour.
Although Thomas Coke did not see the completion of Holkham Hall during his
lifetime, the architectural design and arrangement of art objects reflects the plan and
purpose of its benefactor and his associates. Shaped by Coke’s experiences and
acquisitions during his six-year grand tour, the mansion house is just as much a part of
the collection as the sculptures and paintings that line its walls. The allure of Italy for the
grand tourists is well represented by Coke’s elegantly and effectively displayed sculpture
collection, paintings of both old and new masters, and extensive compilation of rare
books and manuscripts within the Holkham Library.
Bibliography
27 Geoffrey Beard, “Holkham Hall, Norfolk,” The Burlington Magazine 122, no. 927 (Jun., 1980), 447. 28 John Chambers, A general History of the County of Norfolk, intended to convey all the information of a Norfolk Tour, (Norfolk: John Stacy, 1829), 586.
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Angelicoussis, Elizabeth. The Holkham Collection of Classical Sculptures. Philipp von Zabern, 2001. Ayers, Philip. Classical culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-century England. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Beard, Geoffrey. “Holkham Hall, Norfolk.” The Burlington Magazine Vol. 122, No. 927 (Jun., 1980): pp. 447-449. Black, Jeremy. Italy and the Grand Tour. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. Chambers, John. A general History of the County of Norfolk, intended to convey all the information of a Norfolk Tour. Norfolk: John Stacy, 1829. Christie, Christopher. The British Country House in the Eighteenth Century. Manchester, NY: Manchester University Press, 2000. Ford, Brinsley. “Italy and the Grand Tour at Norwich.” The Burlington Magazine Vol. 100, No. 666 (Sep., 1958): pp. 316-319. Haskell, Francis and Nicholas Penny. Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500-1900. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981. Ingamells, John. Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. James, Charles Warburton. Chief Justice Coke: His Family & Descendants at Holkham, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929. Kirby, Paul Franklin. The Grand Tour in Italy (1700-1800). New York: S.F. Vanni, 1952. Michaelis, Adolf. Ancient Marbles in Great Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1882. Scott, Jonathan. The Pleasures of Antiquity: British Collectors of Greece and Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. Skeat, T.C. “Manuscripts and Printed Books from the Holkham Hall Library.” The British Museum Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 2 (Aug., 1952): pp. 23-25. Wilson, Michael. William Kent: Architect, Designer, Painter and Gardener (1685-1748). London/Melbourne: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984.