Thomas Hope
Designer and Patron in Regency London
The son of one of the wealthiest merchant bankers in Europe, Thomas Hope (1769-1831) was a major catalyst in the arts of Regency England. At the age of 18, he embarked on a Grand Tour to the Continent that lasted nearly ten years. While travelling, he started to assemble a remarkable art collection that accompanied him to London when he and his family fled Holland following the French invasion of 1794, and that he would continue to develop thereafter. Hope installed his collection in the extraordinary interior of his Duchess Street house in the centre of London, which he extended and remodeled. Its interior decoration fostered the design which became known as the Regency style: a fascinating amalgam of decorative details, ornament, and influences from Antiquity and British and Continental European art, architecture, and design. This book is the most comprehensive study to date of Thomas Hope, focusing on his multifaceted role as designer, collector and patron. The contributors examine his wide-ranging and intriguing contribution to the arts as well as his extensive writings. Richly illustrated with new photographs, the volume presents a vast array of paintings, furniture, sculpture, and works of art, many of which have never been published before.
About the Author
David Watkin is Professor of the History of Architecture at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of a previous groundbreaking book on Thomas Hope and of others on James 'Athenian' Stuart, Sir John Soane, and King George III, as well as several architectural survey volumes.
Reviews
"I think if I had the chance to visit the exhibition I would have to have the book to go with it!" – Mike Hicks, Eastern Daily Press
"...a richly illustrated catalogue which also contains an impressive array of expert essays on all aspects of his work" – Kathryn Sutherland, Times Literary Supplement
"This is a book to read and read again and it is another triumph for Yale" – Richard Edmonds, Birmingham Post
"This book is the most comprehensive account to date of Thomas Hope's achievements... With a plethora of rich illustrations, the volume includes newly commissioned photographs of paintings, sculpture, furniture and works of art, and fascimile pages from Hope's books" – Lucy Norris, Antiques Magazine
"The new 'Thomas Hope: Regency Designer', which Prof Watkin has co-edited with Philip Hewat-Jabor, is a celebration of the visual world that Hope created, dazzling in its richness, scholarship and invention. Bringing together such a sumptous corpus of work, reconstructs an extraordinary, if sometimes puzzling achievement" – Clive Aslet, Country Life
