ABSTRACT

The century or so that followed the Great Fire of London in 1666 — culminating in the foundation of the Royal Academy by George III in 1768, with Reynolds as its first president — was one of Britain’s finest periods in the visual arts. The century that spans the period between the Fire of London and the foundation of the Royal Academy was a dynamic and significant one for the visual arts in England. Architecture perhaps drew Horace Walpole most strongly of all the arts, and indeed he lived through an era of dramatic change. Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington, was the exemplar of the eighteenth-century English patron of the arts. In the state apartments at Holkham, William Kent took his admiration for Roman splendour a stage further in the elaborately carved and pedimented door frames, heavy cornices, damask hangings, and niches for antique marble sculpture.