Thomas Hope was a Dutch and British merchant banker, author, philosopher and art collector, best known for his novel Anastasius a work which many experts considered a rival to the writings of Lord Byron. His sons included Henry Thomas Hope

Henry Thomas Hope

Henry Thomas Hope was a British MP and patron of the arts.-Biography:He was the eldest of Thomas Hope and Louisa de la Poer Beresford's three sons, but was estranged from his brothers when he inherited their father's art collections, wealth and property along with...

 and Alexander Beresford Hope

Alexander Beresford Hope

Sir Alexander James Beresford Beresford Hope PC , known as Alexander Hope until 1854 Sir Alexander James Beresford Beresford Hope PC (25 January 1820 – 20 October 1887), known as Alexander Hope until 1854 Sir Alexander James Beresford Beresford Hope PC (25 January 1820 – 20 October 1887), known as...

.

Early years in Amsterdam and Heemstede

The eldest son of Jan Hope

Jan Hope

John Hope , also known as Jan Hope, was the son of Thomas Hope and Margaretha Marcelis, first cousin of Henry Hope, father of Thomas Hope, and a follower of the Scottish Enlightenment, who is best known today for his Groenendaal Park in Heemstede, Netherlands, where he summered from 1767 to his...

, Thomas was descended from a branch of an old Scottish family who for several generations were merchant bankers known as the Hopes of Amsterdam, or Hope & Co.

Hope & Co.

Hope & Co. is the name of a famous Dutch bank that spanned two and a half centuries. Though the founders were Scotsmen, the bank was located in Amsterdam, and at the close of the 18th century it had offices in London as well.-Early days:...

 He inherited from his mother a love of the arts, which the efforts of his father and grandfather made possible by acquiring an enormous wealth. His father spent his final years turning his summer home Groenendaal Park

Groenendaal Park

Groenendaal park lies at the center of Heemstede, Netherlands.The park includes the grounds of old Heemstede country estates Bosbeek, and Meer en Berg. Along its western borders are the old Heemstede country estates Hartekamp, Huis te Manpad, and Iepenrode. On the eastern boundary is the city...

 in Heemstede

Heemstede

Heemstede is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland.-History :Heemstede formed around the Castle Heemstede that was built on the Spaarne River around 1286. Before 1296, Floris V, Count of Holland, granted Heemstede as a fiefdom to Reinier of Holy...

 into a grand park of sculpture open to the public. After he fled to London with his brothers to avoid the French occupation of the Netherlands from 1795–1810, he never returned.

Grand tour

In 1784, when young Thomas was fifteen, his father died unexpectedly in the Hague

The Hague

The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

 just after purchasing Bosbeek on the grounds of Groenendaal Park, the house that was to house his large art collection. He shared his art collection as part of the Hope & Co. partnership with his cousin Henry Hope

Henry Hope

Henry Hope was an Amsterdam merchant banker born in Boston, in Britain's Massachusetts Bay Colony in North America.-Early years:...

. This cousin was just completing work on his Villa Welgelegen

Villa Welgelegen

Villa Welgelegen is a historical building in Haarlem, the Netherlands, which currently houses the offices of the provincial executives of North Holland. Located at the north end of a public park in the city, it is an example of neoclassical architecture, unusual for its style in the...

 further up the road. Missing his father and grandfather, and preferring the company of his mother and brothers to his uncles in Amsterdam, Thomas did not enter the family business. Instead, at the age of eighteen, he began to devote more and more of his time to the study of all the arts, especially the architecture of classical civilisation, during a series of tours to other countries. During his grand tour through Europe, Asia and Africa, Hope interested himself especially in architecture and sculpture, making a large collection of artefacts which attracted his attention (e.g. the Hope Dionysus).

Move to London

Thomas Hope returned to the Hague when his mother died in 1794. That same year, the three Hope brothers, along with their elder cousin Henry Hope, who was the executor of their mother's will, fled to London before the oncoming French revolutionary forces marching on Amsterdam. In their haste to remove their art collections to the safety of London, the Hopes left their houses, summer homes and parks full of wall decorations, furniture, and heavy statuary. Later, after the French occupation, Thomas's younger brother Adrian Elias would return to live at Groenendaal Park full time and expand the gardens. Cousin Henry always hoped to return to his home, Villa Welgelegen

Villa Welgelegen

Villa Welgelegen is a historical building in Haarlem, the Netherlands, which currently houses the offices of the provincial executives of North Holland. Located at the north end of a public park in the city, it is an example of neoclassical architecture, unusual for its style in the...

, but he died in 1811 before King Willem

William I of the Netherlands

William I Frederick, born Willem Frederik Prins van Oranje-Nassau , was a Prince of Orange and the first King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg....

 restored Dutch sovereignty in 1814.

Career as an interior decorator

The Hopes established a residence in London in Duchess Street, Cavendish Square

Cavendish Square

Cavendish Square is a public square in the West End of London, very close to Oxford Circus, where the two main shopping thoroughfares of Oxford Street and Regent Street meet. It is located at the eastern end of Wigmore Street, which connects it to Portman Square, part of the Portman Estate, to its...

. Experienced from all his travels, Thomas Hope took to London like a fish to water, while his younger brothers missed their home in the Netherlands. He decorated the house in a very elaborate style, from drawings made himself with each room taking on a different style influenced by the countries he had visited. In essence, the combined art collections of Hope & Co., his parents and Henry Hope gave him the opportunity to further research the various art he had studied during his travels and he began to write books on decoration and furniture, the first of its kind. In the same way he had done with Villa Welgelegen, Henry Hope opened the house as a semi-public museum. The house museum included three vase galleries filled with South Italian vases the Hopes purchased from Sir William Hamilton's

William Hamilton (diplomat)

Sir William Hamilton KB, PC, FRS was a Scottish diplomat, antiquarian, archaeologist and vulcanologist. After a short period as a Member of Parliament, he served as British Ambassador to the Kingdom of Naples from 1764 to 1800...

 second vase collection.

In this eclectic wealthy residence of bachelors, younger brother Henry Philip oversaw the gem collection (acquiring the Hope Diamond

Hope Diamond

The Hope Diamond, also known as "Le bleu de France" or "Le Bijou du Roi", is a large, , deep-blue diamond, now housed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. It is blue to the naked eye because of trace amounts of boron within its crystal structure, but exhibits red...

 and the Hope Pearl), while cousin Henry busied himself with the banking business and the Louisiana Purchase

Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America of of France's claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803. The U.S...

, together with Barings

Barings Bank

Barings Bank was the oldest merchant bank in London until its collapse in 1995 after one of the bank's employees, Nick Leeson, lost £827 million due to speculative investing, primarily in futures contracts, at the bank's Singapore office.-History:-1762–1890:Barings Bank was founded in 1762 as the...

. Thomas Hope did not settle in London, however. He took up his grand tour where he left off, and in 1795 he began his extensive tours of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 which included visits to Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, Rhodes

Rhodes

Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...

, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

, and Arabia. He stayed for about a year in Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

/Constantinople during which he produced some 350 drawings depicting the people and places he witnessed in the Ottoman Empire, a collection now to be found in the Benaki Museum

Benaki Museum

The Benaki Museum, established and endowed in 1930 by Antonis Benakis in memory of his father Emmanuel Benakis, is housed in the Benakis family mansion in downtown Athens, Greece...

, Athens. During these travels, he was given free rein by the Hope & Co. firm to collect many paintings, sculptures, antique objects and books, some of which were destined to be displayed for the public in Amsterdam in the branch offices on the Keizersgracht 444, and some of which were destined for his London house in Duchess Street in 1804.

Marriage and move to Deepdene

After his marriage to Louisa de la Poer Beresford in 1806, Hope acquired a country seat at Deepdene, near Dorking

Dorking

Dorking is a historic market town at the foot of the North Downs approximately south of London, in Surrey, England.- History and development :...

 in Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

. Here, surrounded by his large collections of paintings, sculpture and antiques, Deepdene became a famous resort of men of letters as well as of people of fashion. Among the luxuries suggested by his fine taste, and provided to his guests, was a miniature library in several languages in each bedroom. He also gave frequent employment to artists, sculptors and craftsmen. Bertel Thorvaldsen

Bertel Thorvaldsen

Bertel Thorvaldsen was a Danish-Icelandic sculptor of international fame, who spent most of his life in Italy . Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen into a Danish/Icelandic family of humble means, and was accepted to the Royal Academy of Arts when he was eleven years old...

, the Danish sculptor, was indebted to him for the early recognition of his talents, and he was also a patron to Francis Legatt Chantrey

Francis Legatt Chantrey

Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey was an English sculptor of the Georgian era. He left the Chantrey Bequest or Chantrey Fund for the purchase of works of art for the nation, which was available from 1878 after the death of his widow.-Life:Francis Leggatt Chantrey was born at Norton near Sheffield ,...

 and John Flaxman

John Flaxman

John Flaxman was an English sculptor and draughtsman.-Early life:He was born in York. His father was also named John, after an ancestor who, according to family tradition, had fought for Parliament at the Battle of Naseby, and afterwards settled as a carrier or farmer in Buckinghamshire...

; it was to his order that the latter illustrated the writings of Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri

Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...

.

Writing

Hope was eager to advance public awareness of historical painting and design and to influence design in the grand houses of Regency London. In pursuit of his scholarly projects, he began sketching furniture, room interiors and costumes, and publishing books with his accompanying scholarly texts.

In 1807 Thomas Hope published sketches of his furniture, in a folio volume, titled Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, which had considerable influence and brought about a change in the upholstery and interior decoration of houses. Hope's furniture designs were in the pseudo-classical manner generally called "English Empire". It was sometimes extravagant, and often heavy, but was much more restrained than the wilder and later flights of Thomas Sheraton

Thomas Sheraton

Thomas Sheraton was a furniture designer, one of the "big three" English furniture makers of the 18th century, along with Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite.-Biography:...

 in this style. At the best, however, it was a not very inspiring mixture of Egyptian and Roman motifs.

In 1809 he published the Costumes of the Ancients, and in 1812 Designs of Modern Costumes, works which display a large amount of antiquarian research. A Historical Essay on Architecture, which featured illustrations based on early Hope drawings, was published posthumously by his family in 1835. Thus Hope became famous in London’s aristocratic circles as ‘the costume and furniture man’. The sobriquet was regarded as a compliment by his enthusiastic supporters, but for his critics, including Lord Byron, it was a term of ridicule.

Anastasius

Yearning for a different type of literary acclaim as he approached the age of fifty, Hope began work on a novel with the enthusiastic encouragement of a few close friends. The result completed in 1819, Anastasius, was a work of such academic interest, raw excitement and descriptive power that the first edition released by fabled London publisher, John Murray

John Murray (publisher)

John Murray is an English publisher, renowned for the authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, and Charles Darwin...

, became an overnight sensation. A second edition sold out in twenty-four hours. Foreign translations in French, German and Flemish quickly followed.

The novel lifted a curtain of ignorance about the East without being a mere retelling of Hope's own travels. The eponymous narrator-hero Anastasius was fearless, curious, cunning, ruthless, brave, and above all, sexy. As a newly converted Muslim mercenary soldier, Selim, his travels threw him among friends, lovers and enemies.

Hope's descriptions revealed the lives of the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire and provided astonishing glimpses of the wars fought among the Turks, Russians and Wahabees. It also described many previously unknown details of Islamic culture: music, language, cuisine, religion, laws and literature.

Because of his modesty, Hope originally chose not to declare his authorship of Anastasius in the first edition. Ironically, given Hope's mild reputation, the authorship of the dashing Anastasius was at first mistakenly attributed to Lord Byron, who, according to legend, confided to Marguerite, Countess of Blessington

Marguerite, Countess of Blessington

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington was an Irish novelist.Born Margaret Power near Clonmel in County Tipperary, Ireland, she was a daughter of Edmund Power, a small landowner...

, that he wept bitterly on reading it. "To have been the author of 'Anastasius,' I would have given the two poems which brought me the most glory." These events prompted Hope to reveal his identity as author in later editions, adding a map of Anastasius's travels and fine-tuning the text, although his authorship was initially greeted with incredulity by some journals.

Soon after Hope's death in 1831, his widow Louisa remarried her cousin William Carr Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford

William Carr Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford

General William Carr Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford, 1st Marquis of Campo Maior, GCB, GCH, GCTE, PC , was a British soldier and politician...

. His family thereafter embraced conservative values, causing them to authorise the demolition of the writer's legendary London home, disperse his fabled art collection, and distance themselves from his Oriental masterpiece. No substantial collection of Hope’s personal papers survived the family indifference and Anastasius, his magnum opus, became a victim of the sanctimonious morality of the Victorian age.

Nevertheless, it influenced the later works of William Thackeray, Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

 and Herman Melville

Herman Melville

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....

. More recently, the noted Orientalist, Robert Irwin, wrote, "this book, one of the most important books of the nineteenth century, should be much more widely read."

In addition to his other accomplishments, Hope was the author of an important philosophical work published posthumously, The Origin and Prospect of Man (1831), in which his speculations diverged widely from the social and religious views of the Victorian age. This volume, which has been cited by philosophy expert Roger Scruton

Roger Scruton

Roger Vernon Scruton is a conservative English philosopher and writer. He is the author of over 30 books, including Art and Imagination , Sexual Desire , The Aesthetics of Music , and A Political Philosophy: Arguments For Conservatism...

, was a highly eclectic work and took a global view of the challenges facing mankind.

In his obituary published in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, 12 February 1831, it was written, "We remember the opinion of a writer in the Edinburgh Review, soon after the publication of Anastasius. With a degree of pleasantry and acumen peculiar to northern criticism, he asks, 'Where has Mr. Hope hidden all his eloquence and poetry up to this hour? How is it that he has, all of a sudden, burst out into descriptions which would not disgrace the pen of Tacitus, and displayed a depth of feeling and vigour of imagination which Lord Byron could not excel? We do not shrink from one syllable of this eulogy.' "

Still commonly known among literary circles as "Anastasius Hope," the combined artistic legacy of Thomas Hope is still of universal interest and importance.

Portrait

In an artistic irony against his Oriental legacy, Thomas Hope, the man who revealed the secrets of the Ottoman world, was recently incorrectly described by the writer Philip Mansel

Philip Mansel

Philip Mansel is a British historian and the author of a number of books about revolutionary and post-revolutionary France and the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire...

 as being portrayed in his portrait as wearing the clothes of "a low ranking Greek sailor."

However, because of studies undertaken in 2007, this 1798 portrait of Hope, done by William Beechey, can now be seen with a new appreciation. As proved by the noted Islamic scholar, Professor John Rodenbeck, the Beechey portrait depicts Hope dressed as a Turkish noble, not a Greek sailor. This discovery came about when Professor Rodenbeck carefully examined, then translated, the Arabic writing which is embroidered on the original waistcoat owned by Hope, which the author also wears in the Beechey portrait. The waistcoat and portrait, both of which are in the possession of the National Portrait Gallery reveal that Hope chose to have himself depicted as a rich Turkish Muslim standing before the most sacrosanct Islamic spot in Constantinople, the mosque of Abu Ayyub at Eyüp Sultan

Eyüp Sultan Mosque

The Eyüp Sultan Mosque is situated in the district of Eyüp on the European side of Istanbul, near the Golden Horn, outside the Walls of Constantinople...

.

External links

• www.thomashope.org.uk
• Deepdene entry from The DiCamillo Companion to British & Irish Country Houses
• Jerry Nolan
• Roger Scruton
• Philip Mansel
• Thomas Hope: Regency Designer – 2008 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum
  Victoria and Albert Museum
  The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
  
  
• Portrait of Thomas Hope (National Portrait Gallery, London)
• Anastasius Vol. 1 Anastasius Vol. 2 Anastasius Vol. 3 at the Internet Archive
  Internet Archive
  The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
  
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