The Evolution of English Collecting

Edward Chaney (ed.), The Evolution of English Collecting: Receptions of Italian art in the Tudor and Stuart periods . Studies in British art 12. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2003. ISBN 0–300–10224–0. vii + 484 pp., 140 b. & w. illus. £40. The Evolution of English Collecting is the latest in a series of thematic volumes on British art published under the auspices of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and the Yale Center for British Art. This twelfth volume takes as its subject patronage and collecting in early modern England and, as its subtitle suggests, focuses on enthusiasm for, and reception of, Italian art at this time. As Edward Chaney notes in his Introduction, travel to Rome was banned by the Privy Council for much of the period under consideration, but the contributions of the twelve scholars represented here prove that the reception of Italian art was by no means hindered by political and religious prohibition. Kathryn Barron's detailed study of John, Lord Lumley, proves that travel to Italy was not a prerequisite for forming Italianate collections while Robert Hill's chapter on Sir Dudley Carleton suggests that even residence in Venice may not have prompted an enthusiasm for art collecting in this pessimistic ambassador. Carleton's lack of interest not only in art, but also in most of his diplomatic assignments, make him an endearing exception in a volume otherwise largely concerned with enthusiasts.

Art · Art history · Enthusiasm · Performance art · Political science · Politics · Subject (documents) · Subtitle · Theology · Classics · Historical Art and Architecture Studies · Historical Art and Culture Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies