Paper Palaces: the Topham Collection As a Source for British Neo-Classicism

Paper Palaces: the Topham Collection as a source for British Neo-Classicism Adriano Aymonino with Lucy Gwynn and Mirco Modolo Front cover image: Francesco Bartoli, Drawing of decorative mosaics in the vaulting of S. Costanza, c. 1720-25 (see cat. no. 25) Inside cover image: Francesco Bartoli, Drawing of an ancient ceiling from the Palatine, 1721 (see cat. no. 15) Paper Palaces: the Topham Collection as a source for British Neo-Classicism The Verey Gallery, Eton College May - November 2013 Curated by Lucy Gwynn & Adriano Aymonino Accompanied by the Conference: A Window on Antiquity: the Topham Collection at Eton College, 17th May 2013 Catalogue written by Adriano Aymonino with Lucy Gwynn and Mirco Modolo This catalogue is dedicated to the memory of Louisa M. Connor Bulman Contents Many people have given their support to the production of both the exhibition Foreword 4 Section 2 16 and this catalogue, and we would like in particular to thank: Lord Waldegrave of North Hill Robert Adam and his antiquarian sources The Tavolozza Foundation The Humanities Research Institute, the University of Buckingham Introduction 5 Section 3 22 the rationale for the exhibition Robert Adam, the Topham Collection and Country Life Magazine Francesco Bartoli Sir Francis Dashwood Richard Topham & Eton 6 by Lucy Gwynn The National Trust Section 4 40 The Topham Collection’s broader influence: Savills (UK) Limited Catalogue Charles Cameron and other Neo-Classical architects and decorators The authors would also like to thank Frances Sands for the fruitful discussion on the different hands in the Adam drawings; Jeremy Howard and Eleanor Davey for their Cataloguing Notes 8 help and support; Charlotte Villiers and Dennis Wallis for their patience and exquisite Notes 47 contribution in photography and design, Charlotte Villiers for the coordination of the exhibition, Pat McNeaney for his inexhaustible enthusiasm and skill, the Eton College Section 1 10 Buildings Department and Vario Press. Richard Topham and his collection Bibliography 52 Foreword Introduction: Lord Waldegrave of North Hill the rationale for the exhibition 4 ichard Topham was a sort of diffusion of accurate classical artistic his exhibition explores a for the decoration of domestic interiors felt not only in Britain but also throughout 5 one man Dilettanti Society, knowledge, as this Catalogue and the beautiful, extensive, but now is shown through the exhibition and the Europe and amongst later generations of Rdedicating his energy, money Exhibition describes. Used by Adam, Tlargely neglected collection accompanying catalogue. architects and designers. and considerable scholarship to bringing Cameron and many others, the influence of drawings housed at Eton College The great variety of the Topham With this exhibition, therefore, we authentic classical design to England in the of the Topham Collection spread far Library since the 1730s. The collection, Collection, and the distinction of the hope to show the important influence early eighteenth century. His painstaking and wide. assembled by Richard Topham (1671- artists involved, could easily sustain a that the Topham Collection had upon the listing of classical remains then in the Today, all those concerned with Eton’s 1730) for private study, was in essence a much larger exhibition and a much longer development of British antiquarianism and palaces of Rome and his skill in employing College Library and other Collections reconstruction on paper of the staggering catalogue. We have chosen, instead, to focus classical taste as part of the wider history of good artists systematically to copy what celebrate Topham’s memory with gratitude; collections of antique sculptures, reliefs, on some of those drawings which have had European neo-classicism. We hope, too, that was listed, later played an important part he showed us how important it is to ensure frescoes, and other classical remains to be the most interesting afterlife: the copies of others will draw pleasure from exploring in Europe’s neo-classical revival. He also that the treasures we own can be seen, found in early eighteenth-century Rome. ancient ceilings and wall elevations done by these intricate, bright and fascinating provided an extremely valuable snapshot of discussed, and used for scholarship and for Some two decades after its deposition at Francesco Bartoli (1675-1733) in the first drawings, as we have while preparing what then existed, where, some of which teaching, and how influential such access Eton, the Topham Collection became one quarter of the eighteenth century. These the exhibition. has sadly since been lost. can be. That is why I am delighted to add of the most important sources for British drawings had a significant and enduring By leaving his albums of drawings, my thanks to all those, from Eton and from taste in classical art and decoration. The impact on British neo-classical style, above along with his library, to Eton with the outside Eton, whose names are gratefully story of how these drawings came to be all through their adoption by Adam and his express provision that Eton should make recorded on page 2, and whose partnership used by Robert Adam (1728-1792), one fellow architect Charles Cameron. Through them available for study, he made Eton, has brought Topham’s achievement back of the greatest of British architects, to their architecture, design and publications, for a time, an important centre for the to life. create a new and highly influential idiom the influence of Topham’s Collection was “All my books, prints and drawings that are kept and placed in my new Richard Topham library, to be delivered to the said Provost and Fellows as soon as they shall have finished and fitted up a safe and convenient repository in their new Library for receiving and keeping them… and my will is that all & Eton learned persons at convenient seasons may have recourse to and reasonable by Lucy Gwynn use of said books, prints and drawings…”. Will of Richard Topham, proved 2 Nov. 1730.1 6 he construction of the current strong in classical and Renaissance heritage of ancient Rome and Greece. The He replaced old editions of texts when result of certain conditions made for the 7 Fellows’ Library, paid for largely literature and theology. The last great library that came to Eton had over 1500 they were superseded by more recent maintenance and accessibility of the books, Tby subscription and completed gift of the 1730s, the library of Richard titles, and consisted largely of editions of scholarship, and where only sixteenth or prints and drawings. The arrival of Topham’s in 1729 according to designs by Thomas Topham of Windsor, altered the tenor of classical texts (with an emphasis on the seventeenth century editions existed, he library not only added a sophisticated Rowland (c. 1696-1748), was to some the Library both as a collection of books, most recent or most significant editions), purchased these.4 His catalogue of the scholarly library and art collection to Eton’s extent an act of faith. The College Library and as an institution. and associated literary criticism; printed antique contents of thirty-three Roman holdings, but also initiated a period of around cannot have consisted of more than 2500 Richard Topham had been born in illustrations and catalogues of antique palaces and villas, compiled in his own fifty years when the College Library was open volumes at the turn of the eighteenth Windsor in 1671, was educated at Eton, remains; ancient histories; numismatics, hand in Italian, shows him systematically to visiting readers. That Topham and his century, but the Fellows of Eton had built matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford in sculpture and architecture; and some ordering drawings of artefacts and marking friends intended his collection to function as themselves a library which could hold a 1689, and was studying at Lincoln’s Inn in English histories and miscellaneous their receipt in England, effectively creating a public reference library for classical studies collection of some 20,000 books.2 It was a 1691. He came from a local family, owned books. In addition, the library included a paper copy of the vast collections of after his death is implied by the gift, four leap that was quickly justified, as the 1730s the manor of Clewer Brocas as well as a nearly 2500 drawings ‘from the antique’ antiquities then in Rome.5 years later, of Lord Burlington’s Fabbriche saw a series of distinguished gifts to the grand house in Peascod Street, Windsor, of statues, cameos, reliefs, murals and When Topham died in 1730, he antiche of Palladio, inscribed ‘in bibliothecam College, including the books of Bishop and was MP for Windsor from 1698 until architectural remains. had revoked his original bequest that his Tophamianam collocandus’. This exhibition Edward Waddington (1670?-1731) and 1713.3 Between the early 1690s until Topham’s approach to collecting library should be gifted to Eton College, is testament to the uses Topham’s collection Provost Henry Godolphin (1648-1733) his death, he assembled an astonishing was enthusiastic, personally committed, due to concerns that Eton would not was put to by the artists and architects of (the instigator of the building project). collection of books, prints, drawings and methodical. His finding aids, or provide the public access he desired. His the eighteenth century, and the impact this These gifts added to a collection which and objects which were focussed almost catalogues, demonstrate that after an initial executors were left to arrange for the library’s brief period of openness at College Library already reflected the academic interests of entirely on the documentation and paper- period in which a clerk listed the books, accommodation, and, in 1736, were finally had on the development of European art Eton’s Fellows over the preceding centuries, based reconstruction of the culture and he updated and added entries himself.

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