page_title: Art collections of Holkham Hall
section_title: Description of the major interiors
hierarchical_section_title: Art collections of Holkham Hall / Furnishings and decoration / Description of the major interiors
caption_attribution_description: English: Holkham Hall in Norfolk. The Saloon
context_page_description: The art collection of Holkham Hall in Norfolk, England, remains very largely that which the original owner intended the house to display; the house was designed around the art collection acquired by Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, during his Grand Tour of Italy during 1712–18. To complete the scheme it was necessary to send Matthew Brettingham the younger to Rome between 1747 and 1754 to purchase further works of art.
  The design of the house was a collaborative effort between Thomas Coke, Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, and William Kent, with Matthew Brettingham the elder acting as the on-site architect. The house was built between 1736 and 1764, with work on the interiors only completed in 1771. By 1769 all the men involved had died, leaving Thomas's widow, Lady Margaret Tufton, Countess of Leicester, to oversee the completion of the house. Their only child to survive infancy, Edward Coke, Viscount Coke, had died without issue in 1753.
context_section_description: The Corp de Logis
  The Marble Hall: This is the grandest and most complex room in the House. Rising the full height of the house the room is nearly 50 feet (15 m) high, the main body being 46 feet (14 m) square, at the upper floor level taking up most of the south wall is a large apse, which in turn has a coffered-exedra in its centre. The  ground floor is a rectangle, it being surrounded by walls to the east, west and south sides, which support a Colonnade of eighteen full columns and two matching pilasters on the north wall 20 feet (6.1 m) high of the Ionic order, which in turn are surrounded by a passageway. There are six columns down each flank of the room, with two more at the end, the remaining four columns follow the curve of the apse. The apse contains a wide flight of white marble steps that rises to the upper level at the southernmost columns. The columns have an extremely rich plaster entablature, the soffit has richly decorated plaster panels edged in egg and dart, the frieze has bucrania and putti between festoons of fruit, the cornice in turn supports the deep coffered cove of the ceiling that rises to the flat centre over both the apse and the main part of the room, which is enriched with molded plaster beams also richly decorated with rosettes and other decoration. The fluted columns are of pink-veined Derbyshire alabaster, with white marble capitals. The walls surrounding the ground floor are also faced in the same alabaster, there are two arched doorways at the northern end of the walls leading to the service areas. These walls have a skirting of black marble decorated with a white marble meander, there is also a band of black marble decorated with a white marble scroll pattern just below the bases of the columns. The floor is white marble edged with grey marble. Between the columns is an elaborate black painted s-scroll wrought iron balustrade, supporting a mahogany hand rail. The upper corridor behind the columns is more restrained in its decoration, the alabaster is restricted to the skirting and door frames, with a white marble floor, the flat ceilings having simple large coffers between each column, separated by a rich band of guilloché patterned plasterwork, the walls like the ceiling being white plaster. The east and west walls of the upper level have four plain statue niches alternating with three doors, the southern apse is flanked by doors with windows above, then within the apse are two more statue niches flanking the central exedra with its hexagonal coffering, this contains two more statue niches flanking the doorway into the Saloon with its alabaster door surround with rich entablature and brackets, these like all the doors in the state rooms are of panelled mahogany. All the statue niches are semicircular in plan and rise from dado level to a half domed termination. The northern wall continues the alabaster and marble decoration across the ground floor, above is a Venetian window framed in white plaster, consisting of Corinthian pilasters and matching entablature, this is flanked by two sash windows. Beneath the central window is the main entrance which is flanked by black marble Ionic engaged-columns, supporting an alabaster pediment in the frieze of which is this inscription:
  THIS SEAT, on an open barren Estate
   
  Was planned, planted, built, decorated.
  And inhabited the middle of the XVIIIth Century
   
  By THO's COKE EARL of LEICESTER
  The North Dining Room: Is a cube of 27 feet (8.2 m) a side, with a large apse in the middle of the south wall, this is richly coffered, and flanked by pilasters with richly carved rinceaux and mirrored panelling on their side facing the apse. Within the apse just behind the pilasters are two doors leading to a staircase that links to the service areas and kitchen. The two fireplaces are carved from Sicilian Jasper & white marble, with reliefs from Aesop's Fables, the eastern fireplace with The Bear and the Bee-Hive and the western The Sow and the Wolf, were carved by Thomas Carter, above are oval niches surrounded by plaster swags held in the talons of gilt p
caption: The Drawing Room
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