Owning the past: why the English collected antique sculpture, 1640-1840

Contents

Annexing history: Lord Arundel, Lord Pembroke and their ancient marbles -- Atavism in a Palladian frame: myths of ancestry and new Romans -- Temples of liberty and other polemics -- Buying (and selling) taste -- Competing for reputation -- A partial enlightenment -- The connoisseurship of libertinism: a diversion -- Recreating the antique as neoclassical ideal -- Memorials, souvenirs and speaking stones -- The romantic museum: antique sculpture in the public realm.