A Grand Tour: Discover Italy in Isleworth

A new home at Osterley

The Ford Collection was gifted to Osterley Park and House in 2023 by Augustine Ford, Brinsley Ford’s son, through the Cultural Gifts Scheme. The National Trust accepted this gift for Osterley Park and House.

Over the next four years, items from the Ford Collection will be featured on display in the house for visitors to discover and see the historic events of the Grand Tour come to life. Starting from the 3rd of July this year, a display of eight artworks will be open to the public from Wednesday to Sunday between 11 am to 3:30 pm.

One of the key reasons for this spectacular collection coming to Osterley is because of the architect Robert Adam. When Robert Adam designed Osterley in the late 18th century, many of the architecture and features he incorporated were greatly influenced by his time on the Grand Tour.
There is a beautiful marriage between the artwork from the Ford Collection and some of our interiors, making Osterley Park and House the perfect home to house the great collection.

By 2028, we hope to have the Ford Collection on permanent display in the Yellow Breakfast Room.

Key collection pieces

Here are some of the key collection pieces you can look forward to seeing up close.

Thomas Patch (British, 1725-82), A Gathering of the Dilettanti around the Medici Venus, 1760-61, oil on canvas

Here, Devon-born Thomas Patch creates an imagined scene of a marble Hall where he can be seen balanced between a stepladder and pedestal measuring the famous Medici Venus under the direction of his friend, the diplomat Sir Horace Mann. Patch often included himself in his caricatures of British Grand Tourists. In the painting, colourfully dressed noblemen and scholars (‘dilettanti’) parade before other Uffizi sculptures in a display of connoisseurship. The sculptures surrounding them belong to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Interestingly, the painting was previously cut into four panels to form a screen before Brinsley Ford acquired and restored it in the 1960s.

The Ballroom of a Pavilion erected at The Oaks, Surrey, 1774, attributed to Robert Adam (Scottish, 1728–92) and Joseph Bonomi (Italian, 1739–1808), pen and grey wash on paper

No expense was spared when the Earl of Derby instructed Robert Adam to design this enormous temporary party pavilion in June 1774. Constructed of wood and canvas, it played host to a spectacular pastoral festival known as a ‘fête champêtre’. Over a thousand guests descended on The Oaks to celebrate the marriage of the Earl’s grandson to Lady Betty Hamilton. There were masques, dances, a lavish supper and performances by London’s best musicians. 165 years later, in July 1939, the Earl and Countess of Jersey hosted their own Georgian Ball and fête champêtre at Osterley. Guests wore 18th-century costume as a ‘tribute’, the invitation read, ‘to the Romantic Period in which the House was built.’

Charles-Louis Clérisseau (French, 1721–1820), An Architectural Capriccio, 1764, watercolour and gouache on paper

Arriving in Rome as a prize-winning pupil of the French Academy, Clérisseau spent the next eighteen years in the city, becoming an expert in classical architecture, undertaking a modest architectural practice, and sharing his knowledge as an artistic mentor to students and Grand Tourists. His skill as a draughtsman and teacher made an impression on Robert Adam, who was in Rome on his Grand Tour. In the 1750s, Clérisseau and Adam lived together near the Spanish Steps. During that time, Clérisseau taught Adam how to draw like a master architect.

Beyond architecture, Clérisseau has been called ‘the quintessential artist of the Grand Tour’. To supplement his income, he produced views and architectural fantasies (capricci) like this example, which portrayed, as the art historian Alastair Laing writes, ‘less the Rome that the tourist had seen, than the Rome he would have liked to have seen’. His capricci were the direct inspiration for the inlaid picture in the Eating Room at Osterley.