Overview

For every great country house of the Georgian period, there was usually also a town house. Chatsworth, for example, the home of the Devonshires, has officially been recognised as one of the country’s favourite national treasures - but most of its visitors know little of Devonshire House, which the family once owned in the capital. In part, this is because town houses were often leased, rather than being passed down through generations as country estates were. But, most crucially, many London town houses, including Devonshire House, no longer exist, having been demolished in the early twentieth century. This book seeks to place centre-stage the hugely important yet hitherto overlooked town houses of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, exploring the prime position they once occupied in the lives of families and the nation as a whole. It explores the owners, how they furnished and used these properties, and how their houses were judged by the various types of visitor who gained access.

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9781501373749

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Reviews

Visually thrilling and engaging throughout, this collection makes a timely intervention in several fields, and will probably become a cornerstone text for scholars working across architectural history, material culture, social history, history of collecting and art history. Signposting archival and museum resources alongside compelling methodological frameworks, The Georgian London Town House issues a rallying cry for future scholarship and proposes exciting and myriad ways in which we might look to reanimate these previously obscured worlds. * Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies * A major contribution to scholarship, mostly well written and carefully edited ... The book is generally attractive and well produced. * Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society *

Author Information

Kate Retford is Senior Lecturer in History of Art, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. Susanna Avery-Quash is Senior Research Curator (History of Collecting), The National Gallery London, UK.

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