Art collections of Holkham Hall

The art collection of Holkham Hall in Norfolk, England, remains very largely that which the original owner intended the house to display; the house was designed around the art collection acquired (a few works were commissioned) by Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, during his Grand Tour of Italy during 1712–18. To complete the scheme it was necessary to send Matthew Brettingham the younger to Rome between 1747 and 1754 to purchase further works of art. The design of the house was a collaborative effort between Thomas Coke, Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, and William Kent, with Matthew Brettingham the elder acting as the on-site architect. The house was built between 1736 and 1764, with work on the interiors only completed in 1771. By 1769 all the men involved had died, leaving Thomas's widow, Lady Margaret Tufton, Countess of Leicester (1700–1775), to oversee the completion of the house. Their only child to survive infancy, Edward Coke, Viscount Coke, had died without issue in 1753. The house is designed with a corps de logis containing the state rooms on the first floor (piano nobile), surrounded by four wings: to the south-west the family wing, to the north-west the guest wing, to the south-east the chapel wing and to the north-east the kitchen wing. With all the intervening doors open it is possible to stand in the Long Library and look down the full length of the southern State Rooms and see the east window of the Chapel in the opposing wing the full 344 feet (105 m) length of the house. The family wing is a self-contained residence, meant for daily living. The Marble Hall is in the centre of the north front. To its west is the North Dining Room (also called the State Dining Room), then along the west side of the corps de logis is the Statue Gallery, to its east on the south front is the Drawing Room, then the Saloon, South Dining Room, Landscape Room north of which on the east side of the corps de logis is the Green State Bedroom, Green State Dressing…