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Wedgwood, Boulton, and Henry Hoare II: patronage of the antique taste at Stourhead.
Henry Hoare II, or "Henry the Magnificent" as he was known to his family, was an exemplary patron of the arts and an astute customer of Britain's most innovative entrepreneurs of his day (Fig. 3). (1) A scion of the founder of Britain's oldest private bank and the creator of the enchanting pleasure garden inspired by Roman antiquity at Stourhead, in Wiltshire, Hoare's unlimited wealth and cultured taste placed him at the forefront of fashion in England, particularly for the antique taste that developed after the discoveries of the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum (1738) and Pompeii (1748). Within a six-month period in 1770 he purchased the first volumes of P. F. H. d'Hancarville's, Antiquites Etrusques, Grecques et Romaines (see Fig. 6) and ordered candle vases in the antique style from the Birmingham hardware manufacturer Matthew Boulton and ceramic vases from Josiah Wedgwood I of Staffordshire. This article surveys his pattern of collecting, enlightening in some measure our appreciation of the patronage of the decorative arts.
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The antique taste relied on the art of ancient Greece and Rome for inspiration, and just as patrons of art in the Roman Empire and Hellenistic kingdoms had agreed on certain models of excellence to be worthy of study, so, too, did eighteenth-century patrons quickly recognize certain contemporary craftsmen who convincingly interpreted this taste--Wedgwood and Boulton among them. Educated and traveled patrons such as Hoare were critical to the financial support of this renewed interest in classical forms and imagery, particularly that found on ancient vases.
With the impressive exception of Italian pictures and sculpture by Michael Rysbrack (c. 1694-1770), few of Hoare's acquisitions remain at Stourhead. (2) As a partner in Hoare's Bank on Fleet Street, which profited from the fashionable embellishments of like-minded aristocratic landowners, Hoare could afford the finest furnishings, but a fire in 1902 destroyed the interiors at Stourhead and many of the original contents. His library, rich in the classics, general history, and belles lettres, was dispersed along with a larger and more valuable one formed by his grandson, the scholar and antiquary Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838), second baronet, in a devastating series of heirloom sales in 1883.
- Body of evidence.
- News wire article from: Europe Intelligence Wire August 8, 2003 700+ words
...finding the heap of masonry an eyesore and an irritant. Then, a saviour emerged in the form of Wiltshire patron of the arts, Henry Hoare, who scooped up the stones as a valuable addition to his collection of follies at Stourhead. To Bristol's shame, it has...
- Recent gardening books.
- Magazine article from: Spectator Keen, Mary December 4, 2004 700+ words
...literary and artistic Italians continued to subscribe to the pastoral idyll, which inspired young English travellers like Henry Hoare of Stourhead to bring Arcadia home in their intellectual baggage. Serious scholars (please resist the temptation) will...
- When land girls and a heart-throb lorded over stourhead.
- News wire article from: Europe Intelligence Wire March 18, 2005 700+ words
...for the best part of a year. During the Great War of 1914-18, Sir Henry Hoare and his wife Lady Alda turned their ancestral home, built by banking magnate Henry Hoare in the 1740s, into a retreat for wounded soldiers. Their private world...
- Dressed in gold leaf.
- News wire article from: Europe Intelligence Wire October 18, 2008 700+ words
...energy back from the leaves and store it up for the winter. Henry Hoare, a director of Hoare's Bank in London, inherited Stourhead...appreciate its full beauty. What is certain, though, is that Henry Hoare was a genius, whose interest in the classics influenced the...
- Lord and lady who rallied our boys.
- News wire article from: Europe Intelligence Wire March 17, 2005 700+ words
...the 'inventor of the English landscape' - a decade later. Henry Hoare's vision of landscaped gardens and luxurious vistas of lawns...That's when the wife of the then Lord of Manor, also Henry Hoare, was touched by the plight of casualties from the mud and...
- How water oiled the wheels of the city.
- News wire article from: Europe Intelligence Wire September 2, 2003 700+ words
...the cross as they were causing traffic congestion and they were sold - along with the ancient High Cross - to wealthy banker Henry Hoare. He fitted them into his landscaped gardens which were then being constructed for him at his mansion at Stourhead, in Wiltshire...
- English furniture at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical...
- Magazine article from: The Magazine Antiques Beard, Geoffrey June 1, 2003 700+ words
...openwork backs also in the form of shells, is at Stourhead, Wiltshire, and they maybe those bought from Grendey in 1746 by Henry Hoare II (1705-1785) (3) Much of the Adam style furniture acquired for the upstairs bedrooms and sitting rooms was bought...
- A gothic revival.
- News wire article from: Europe Intelligence Wire January 10, 2007 700+ words
...most of the stunning views across the lake. In 1895 it was converted into a summer-house by Lady Alda Hoare, wife of Sir Henry Hoare, 6th Baronet (1862-1947) of Stourhead and was re-roofed with stone tiles 100 years ago. Trust spokesperson Rebecca...
- Landowners, Capitalists and Entrepreneurs: Essays for Sir John Habakkuk.
- Magazine article from: The English Historical Review Pollard, Sidney February 1, 1997 700+ words
...story of the decline of the small landowner before the nineteenth century; C. G. A. Clay traces the landed investment of Henry Hoare, the banker; a similar theme, on a larger scale, is treated by the editor, who finds that many of the rich did buy estates...
- Footsteps into Bristol.
- News wire article from: Europe Intelligence Wire October 24, 2006 700+ words
...Dean Cutts-Barton - anxious to avoid the cost of ever having to put the Cross back - then presented it to his friend, Henry Hoare, the squire of Stourhead, in Wiltshire, and there it remains to this day. History repeated itself when a replica High...
Source: HighBeam Research, Wedgwood, Boulton, and Henry Hoare II: patronage of the antique taste...