Strawberry Hill:London Luminaries Patron and Painter:Horace Walpole & Eccardt by Martin Postle

The London Luminaries is a group of historic organisations who collaboratively work together to share knowledge and ideas about heritage.

In 1746 Horace Walpole published his poem, ’The Beauties: an Epistle to Mr Eckardt the Painter’. From that moment until the artist’s death some thirty years later, Walpole became the principal patron of the German born John Giles Eccardt, commissioning from him a series of small-scale portraits of himself and his coterie, which he hung in the intimate surroundings of his blue bed-chamber at Strawberry Hill. This talk tells the story of Walpole’s patronage of Eccardt, and the cast of characters – players, poets and politicians – that peopled his portraits.

Dr Martin Postle is a Trustee of the Strawberry Hill Trust and Deputy Director at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Between 1998 and 2007 Martin was Head of British Art to 1900 at Tate. He holds a PhD from Birkbeck College, University of London, and an MA in British Romantic Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art. Martin’s research interests and publications focus principally on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British Art, including portraiture, landscape, country house collections, and the history of art academies. He has curated numerous exhibitions, including monographic shows on Joshua Reynolds, Johan Zoffany, Richard Wilson, George Stubbs, and Stanley Spencer. Most recently, Martin has completed a major online research project for the Paul Mellon Centre, entitled Art and the Country House, available at http://artandthecountryhouse.com/