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Marble mania

Used throughout the Mediterranean world for thousands of years, marble grew in popularity in England in the seventeenth century, reaching a peak at the close of the eighteenth. During these centuries scores of collectors who saw themselves as connoisseurs of ancient civilizations brought antique marbles to England. Initially they were the wealthiest and most educated people, such as Thomas Howard, fourteenth earl of Arundel, who not only acquired many marbles but also had some of his friends, among them Inigo Jones and John Evelyn, interpret them for him and publish their findings.
The grand tour, which made Italy and Greece familiar to a broader social base, accelerated the pace of importing marble statues and other such artifacts into England. Architects such as Robert Adam drew on this classical vocabulary to design houses like Kedleston Hall and Syon House in which these objects could best be displayed. By the 1760s collecting antique sculpture had become a branch of archaeology and the Society of Antiquaries in London flourished.
An exhibition entitled Marble Mania: Sculpture Galleries in England, 1640-1840, which explores this subject, is on view at the Sir John Sonae's Museum in London until December 22. The exhibition demonstrates the scope and nature of the English sculpture gallery from the baroque ensemble created by Thomas Herbert, the eighth earl of Pembroke, at Wilton House to the Renaissance revival sculpture corridor devised in the 1840s at Osbome House on the Isle of Wight, Victoria and Albert's private villa. An accompanying catalogue written by Ruth Guilding, the curator of the exhibition.