Enlightened Eclecticism The Grand Design Of The 1St Duke And Duchess Of Northumberland

The central decades of the eighteenth century in Britain were crucial to the history of European taste and design. One of the period's most important campaigns of patronage and collecting was that of the 1st Duke and Duchess of Northumberland: Sir Hugh Smithson (1712-1786) and Lady Elizabeth Seymour Percy (1716-1776).

This book examines four houses they refurbished in eclectic architectural styles-Stanwick Hall, Northumberland House, Syon House, and Alnwick Castle-alongside the innumerable objects they collected, their funerary monuments, and their persistent engagement in Georgian London's public sphere. This study sheds light on the eclectic taste of Georgian Britain, the emergence of neoclassicism and historicism, and the cultures of the Grand Tour and the Enlightenment.