Find out how the adventures of young aristocrats created a higher awareness of art in British society. A moral education? At its height, from around 1660–1820, the Grand Tour was considered to be the best way to complete a gentleman’s education.

Grand Tourists would return with crates full of books, works of art, scientific instruments, and cultural artefacts – from snuff boxes and paperweights to altars, fountains, and statuary – to be displayed in libraries, cabinets, gardens, drawing rooms, and galleries built for that purpose.

The Grand Tour gave concrete form to northern Europeans’ ideas about the Greco-Roman world and helped foster Neoclassical ideals. The most ambitious tourists visited excavations at such …

Art, antiquity and architecture: the Grand Tour provided an opportunity to discover the cultural wonders of Europe and beyond. Popular throughout the 18th century, this extended journey was seen as a rite of passage for mainly young, aristocratic English men.

Nov 28, 2022 · The Grand Tour was a trip across Europe which was taken by upper-class gentlemen during the 17th and 18th centuries to observe great art.

Jun 1, 2017 · Art was central to this travel in a number of ways, from visiting masterpieces of painting and architecture, to commissioning portraits, buying art to bring home, and engaging an artist for the journey who would paint the sublime beauty of each destination.

Oct 2, 2013 · The Grand Tour offered four distinct programs performed in the galleries by leading early music ensembles, with audiences seated right beside works of art. There were so many transcendent moments—and so many revelations.

The Grand Tourists’ collecting activities promoted the revival of ancient art forms, creating a taste for architecture and sculpture in a Neo-classical or Greek style, and in the manufacture of objects such as Wedgwood cameo wares.

May 26, 2024 · More than just a glamorous gap year, the Grand Tour aimed to steep aristocratic scions in art, history, languages, and worldly experience in preparation for leadership roles at home. The tradition emerged in the late 17th century …

The Grand Tour, the journey to discover ancient Italian sites, was a real cultural movement, which developed alongside the emergence of neoclassicism in literature and art. Antiquity dictated...