Phrases such as ‘Some aspects of…’ are death at the box-office, so it is not exactly unknown for the titles of scholarly works to promise far more than they actually deliver. Most unusually, the actual reach of Ruth Guilding’s mighty and compelling new study is far wider than the already large subject of ‘Why the English Collected Antique Sculpture, 1640–1840’.
There are all sorts of ways in which the author goes beyond her ostensible brief, but it should be stated at the outset that she does indeed examine both why the English collected and what they collected. Guilding begins her introduction with a quote from J. Paul Getty — here rather oddly described as being ‘Anglo-American’, which better fits his knighted son and namesake — on the joys of collecting, and goes on to explain that his passion for Greek and Roman marble antiquities was a traditional one.
In view of the fact that in this country Greek and Latin formed such a large part of the academic curriculum during the period she covers, this is hardly surprising, but in addition there was a persistent wish here to see ourselves as the spiritual heirs of the ancients.
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