In Then and Now: Collecting and Classicism in Eighteenth-Century England, Joan Coutu examines the popular aristocratic practice of collecting classical sculpture in mid-century Britain. Focusing on the curious preference for copies and casts of classical statuary instead of authentic originals, she argues that these replicas of antiquity were valuable in shaping the evolving taste and politics of the landed aristocracy and legitimating Britain's emerging empire. Coutu usefully focuses on four whig collectors—the Marquess of Rockingham, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Huntingdon, and Thomas Hollis—in order to explore the different ways they used sculpture to claim their right to rule and encourage public virtue.
Coutu begins by looking at how sculpture collections functioned as political display. Chapter 1 reviews early eighteenth-century collectors who interspersed classical sculptures among contemporary pieces to create an iconographic narrative that rested on a temporal elision between past and present. At his Houghton estate, for example, Robert Walpole gathered busts of Roman leaders together with those of himself and his family to authenticate his claim to political leadership, while the Prince of Wales installed a statue of Minerva in his gardens at Kew to evoke his own political prowess on his way to becoming King George III.
This trend became more pronounced with Charles Watson-Wentworth, the second Marquess of Rockingham, whose Wentworth Woodhouse estate functioned as his political base during his leadership of the whig party. In chapter 2, Coutu discusses how Rockingham brought back from his Grand Tour of Italy a collection of replicas renowned not for their quality but for the concept of virtue they represented. Including the Laocoön and the Venus de'Medici, these seminal works of classical antiquity represented the distinction of their owner and were meant to suggest both Rockingham and England's greatness. A prominent site on the English Grand Tour, his large house with its impressive collection provided a physical manifestation of the landed aristocracy's claim to power and an inspiration to civic virtue.
Chapter 3 examines the political activism of Charles Lennox, the third Duke of Richmond, with his sculpture gallery in Whitehall. The gallery functioned as an academy to train English artists; with its reproduction of the Apollo Belvedere and fragmented body parts of statues, it emphasized a concern with the study of ideal classical forms. Rendering artists more competitive with those on the Continent, the academy helped fuel British nationalism. Coutu also uses Richmond's collection to examine the political influence of social networks; as she notes, the duke's academy, associated with the Society of Arts, became a tool for challenging the king's newly established Royal Academy and hence the monarchy.
Even when their owners were not publicly successful, sculpture collections could still represent political identity. As Coutu reveals in chapter 4, Donington Park in Leicestershire served as a refuge for Francis Hastings, the tenth Earl of Huntingdon, after his disgrace at court, but it also reflected his careful grooming in aristocratic ideals. A bust of Huntingdon paired with one of Epicurus represented at once the civic virtue of tempering pleasures and the whig ideology of a government that rejected absolute authority. Busts of Peter the Great and Oliver Cromwell further indicated his support for social reform. By expressing the characters of the persons portrayed, the busts conveyed Huntingdon's personal and political beliefs.
Chapter 5 provides a contrast to Coutu's studies of landed aristocrats by focusing on Thomas Hollis, a member of the rising bourgeoisie. Due to his status, Hollis chose not to build a country house; instead, he gave gifts of sculptures and other objects that allowed him to disseminate his whig ideology. For instance, his circulation of medals of the Seven Years' War commemorated Britain's recent victory and positioned the country as an ideal empire in recipients' minds. Because he was not directly involved in politics, Coutu argues, he was merely a facilitator and lacked any real influence. However, as recent theoretical works on “thing theory” indicate, the circulation of objects can have a profound impact on political beliefs, a point that this study could have considered further.
Coutu's concluding chapter shows how the classical aesthetic canon that emerged from this period of collecting helped shape British imperialism and the Grand Manner in art later in the century. Whereas sculpture collections once manifested the link between the landed aristocracy and their sense of civic duty, those after mid-century represented the emergence of career politicians and an increasingly powerful monarchy. Housed in dedicated sculpture galleries rather than displayed throughout estates, these later collections foreshadowed the birth of the imperial museum. The evolution of mid-century collecting subsequently reveals how classical sculpture worked to articulate political agendas and shape national memory.
Coutu's book is important as part of a growing body of research exploring the relationship between eighteenth-century politics and aesthetics. As an art historian, she offers readers in her discipline perceptive interpretations of the function of statuary, careful historical and archival research, and beautiful, extensive photo reproductions and color plates. Her work also speaks to a wider academic audience through its engagement in interdisciplinary conversations on social networks and material culture. As the title suggests, Then and Now contributes significantly to an understanding of how collecting helped define Britain in the eighteenth century and beyond.
