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vibrant culture of connoisseurship in Enlightenment England by investigating the
multifaceted activities and achievements of the Society of Dilettani. Elegantly
and wittily he dissects the British connoisseurs whose expeditions,
collections, and publications laid the groundwork for the Neoclassical revival
and for the scholarly study of Graeco-Roman antiquity.
After the foundation of the
society in 1732, the Dilettani commissioned portraits of the members. Including
a striking group of mock-classical and mock-religious representations, these
portraits were painted by George Knapton, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Sir Thomas
Lawrence.
During the second half of the
century, the society’s expeditions to the Levant yielded a series of pioneering
architectural folios, beginning with the first volume The Antiquities of Athens in 1762. These monumental volumes aspired
to empirical exactitude in text and image alike. They prepared the way for Specimens of Antient Sculpture (1809),
which combines the didactic (detailed investigations into technique, condition,
restoration, and provenance) with the connoisseurial (plates that bring the
illustration of ancient sculpture to new artistic heights).
The Society of Dilettanti’s
projects and publications exemplify the Enlightenment ideal of the gentleman
amateur, which is linked in turn to a culture of wide-ranging curiosity.
