Description
Household furniture and interior decoration, executed from designs by Thomas Hope. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, 1807. Folio, (495 x 295mm.), engraved title, and 60 engraved plates, half-title, original cloth with large original paper label to upper cover, uncut, some spotting
Footnote
Note: Thomas Hope (1769–1831) was influential as a designer, design reformer and collector. A Dutchman, born in Amsterdam, Hope inherited from his family a tradition of collecting as well as vast wealth from the family bank. He was a collector on a grand scale and also an innovative designer of great genius who helped define what we understand as the Regency style.
His extensive Grand Tour travels in Europe, Greece, Turkey and Egypt inspired his interest in antiquities as a source of designs for Regency interiors, furniture and metalwork. He was determined to reform contemporary taste by returning architecture and the arts, including interior design and furniture, to what he conceived as the spirit of classical purity.
In 1799 he bought a house designed by Robert Adam in Duchess Street, Portland Place, London, which he remodelled with a series of themed interiors. The colourful interiors of Duchess Street and of Hope's country house, Deepdene in Surrey, played a unique role in the history of collecting, interior design and display. Both were open to select visitors, but his furniture reached an even wider public through his book, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration. Published in 1807, this book introduced the term 'interior decoration' into the English language.