Thomas Hope (1769–1831)
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Henry Thomas Hope (August 30, 1769 - February 3, 1830/1831), was a British art collector and author, best known for his books on interior design, who also wrote fiction. His novel Anastasius was considered a rival to Byron.
He was born in Amsterdam, the eldest son of John Hope (1737-1784), and was descended from a branch of an old Scottish family who for several generations were merchants known as the Hopes of Amsterdam. He inherited from his mother a love of the arts, which the efforts of his father and grandfather made possible by acquiring an enormous wealth. His father spent his final years turning his summer home Groenendaal into a grand park of sculpture open to the public. In 1784 when young Thomas was fifteen, his father died unexpectedly in the Hague just after purchasing Bosbeek, the house that was to house his large art collection. Missing his father and grandfather, and preferring the company of his mother and brothers to his uncles in Amsterdam, Thomas did not enter the family business, but cashed in and became a gentleman of luxury. Together with his mother, Thomas continued the work of his father, and Groenendaal became his first decoration project that entertained many important visitors for Hopes Bank. His younger brother Adrian busied himself with the gardens. At eighteen, Thomas began his grand tour through Europe, Asia and Africa, where he interested himself especially in architecture and sculpture, making a large collection of artefacts which attracted his attention (eg the Hope Dionysus). In 1794 he returned to the Hague when his mother died. The same year the three Hope brothers fled to London before the French revolutionary forces marching on Amsterdam with their uncle Henry Hope, who was the executor of their mother's will. In their haste to remove their art collections to the safety of London, the Hopes left their houses, summer homes and parks full of heavy statuary.
On establishing a residence in London with his bachelor uncle in Duchess Street, Cavendish Square, he fitted it out in a very elaborate style, from drawings made himself with each room taking on a different style influenced by the collection he amassed. The house museum included three vase galleries filled with South Italian vases Hope purchased from Sir William Hamilton's second vase collection. In this residence, his younger brother Henry Philip oversaw the gem collection (acquiring the Hope diamond and the Hope Pearl), while Uncle Henry busied himself with the banking business and the Louisiana Purchase. After the French occupation Adrian returned to Heemstede, where he continued to devote himself to park improvements.
In 1807 Thomas Hope published sketches of his furniture, in a folio volume, entitled Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, which had considerable influence and brought about a change in the upholstery and interior decoration of houses. This was in spite of some sarcastic remarks from George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron. Hope's furniture designs were in the pseudo-classical manner generally called "English Empire". It was sometimes extravagant, and often heavy, but was much more restrained than the wilder and later flights of Thomas Sheraton in this style. At the best, however, it was a not very inspiring mixture of Egyptian and Roman motives. In 1809 he published the Costumes of the Ancients, and in 1812 Designs of Modern Costumes, works which display a large amount of antiquarian research.
He was a munificent patron of the highest forms of art, and both at his London house and his country seat at Deepdene near Dorking he formed large collections of paintings, sculpture and antiques. Deepdene in his day became a famous resort of men of letters as well as of people of fashion, and among the luxuries suggested by his fine taste was a miniature library in several languages in each bedroom. Bertel Thorvaldsen, the Danish sculptor, was indebted to him for the early recognition of his talents, and he also gave frequent employment to Francis Legatt Chantrey and John Flaxman; it was to his order that the latter illustrated Dante Alighieri.
In 1819 he published anonymously his novel, Anastasius, or Memoirs of a Modern Greek, written at the close of the 18th century, a work which, chiefly on account of the novel character of its subject, caused a great sensation. It was at first generally attributed to Lord Byron, who told Marguerite, Countess of Blessington, that he wept bitterly on reading it because he had not written it and Hope had. Although remarkable for the acquaintance it displays with Eastern life, and distinguished by considerable imaginative vigour and much graphic and picturesque description, its paradoxes are not so striking as those of Lord Byron. Despite some eloquent and forcible passages, it was ascribed to Byron only because of the general type of character to which its hero belonged.
Hope was the author of two works published posthumously -- the Origin and Prospect of Man (1831), in which his speculations diverged widely from the usual orthodox opinions, and an Historical Essay on Architecture (1835), an elaborate description of the architecture of the Middle Ages, illustrated by drawings made by himself in the Italian peninsula and the German Confederation. He is commonly known in literature as "Anastasius Hope". He married (1806) Hon. Louisa de la Poer Beresford, daughter of William Beresford, 1st Baron Decies, Archbishop of Tuam, and wife Elizabeth Fitx Gibbon. Their third and youngest son was Alexander Beresford Hope. He died in Amsterdam. His widow remarried her cousin William Carr Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford.
In his obituary published in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831[1], it was written
We remember the opinion of a writer in the Edinburgh Review, soon after the publication of _Anastasius_. With a degree of pleasantry and acumen peculiar to northern criticism, he asks, "Where has Mr. Hope hidden all his eloquence and poetry up to this hour? How is it that he has, all of a sudden, burst out into descriptions which would not disgrace the pen of Tacitus, and displayed a depth of feeling and vigour of imagination which Lord Byron could not excel? We do not shrink from one syllable of this eulogy."
[edit] Sources
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
[edit] External links
- Thomas Hope: Regency Designer - 2008 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum
- Portrait of Thomas Hope (National Portrait Gallery, London)
