Art Collections of Holkham Hall - The Design of Holkham Hall

The Design of Holkham Hall

• Section through northern rooms

• Section through Statue Gallery

• Section through southern rooms

• Plan of the piano nobile

When the idea of rebuilding Holkham first occurred is not known. It may have been during his grand tour that the idea first emerged, Coke had met William Kent in early 1714 and then Richard Boyle the 3rd Earl of Burlington later that same year. Later they went travelling through Italy and experienced Andrea Palladio's architecture first hand, particularly his villas in the Veneto. Palladio's I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura (The Four Books of Architecture) sets out the theories that underlie his designs and includes an extensive series of woodcut illustrations. These villas formed the basis of the design, though reinterpreted as the centre of an English country estate rather than a summer retreat from Venice, that included working farm buildings. Whereas in a Palladio villa the family would have lived in the Corp de Logis the wings being reserved for agricultural use, at Holkham the State Rooms housing the finest works of art occupy the centre of the House the wings being used for daily life and service functions. In 1773 Matthew Brettingham the younger published a new edition of his father's book The Plans, Elevations and Sections of Holkham with additional text in which it is stated that the concept of a central corp de logis with wings was taken from Palladio's unfinished Villa of Trissino at Meledo but that another of the architect's unbuilt designs Villa Mocenigo on the Brenta was the model for four wings. Brettingham also stated that Lord Leicester found the design with curved colonnades wasteful and adopted the current short corridor links. One of the subjects covered in Palladio's writings are the ratios of room dimensions, this is seen in the House where the ratios of 1:1 occur in the Landscape room and the North Dining room both square, 3:1 is seen in the Long Library, 2:3 in the South Dining room and Drawing Room, 3:4 in Lady Leicester's Sitting Room and the Venetian Room and 1:1.41 (the square root of two) in the Saloon.

There were several major influences on the interior decoration of the house including Inigo Jones's designs. Burlington had purchased Jones's surviving architectural drawings in 1720. These were then published in 1727 in the two folio volumes of The Designs of Inigo Jones by William Kent. Ceilings divided up by deep plaster beams that are found throughout Holkham are in the style of Jones, who designed ceilings like these for the Queen's House. Other features showing the influence of Jones's designs include many of the door surrounds, fireplaces such as those in the Drawing Room that are massively sculptural and the decorative niche above the Statue Gallery fireplace.

Antoine Desgodetz's publication Les edifices antiques de Rome dessinés et mesurés très exactement (Paris 1682) with its engravings of the monuments and antiquities of Rome, provided suitable architectural details based on illustrations in this book for rooms including: The Marble Hall the columns of which are based on those of the Temple of Fortuna Virilis the coffering is based on the Pantheon, The Statue Gallery exedra are based on those at the Temple of Venus and Roma, in the Saloon the coffering of the cove is copied from the Basilica of Maxentius and the ceiling freize in the Drawing Room is from the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina. Daniele Barbaro's translation with extended commentary of the De architectura (Ten books of Architecture) by Vitruvius, contains a woodcut interpretation of a plan of Vitruvius's Roman House and was in part the inspiration for the Marble Hall, especially the atrium which is shown flanked by six columns and with a coffered ceiling. Matthew Brettingham the younger stated that the concept for the Marble Hall was Lord Leicester's, inspired by "Palladio's example of a Basilica, or tribual of justice, exhibited in his designs for Monsignor Barbaro's translation of Vitruvius".

Between 1725 and 1731, William Kent had been at work designing interiors at nearby Houghton Hall, prior to the building of Holkham this was the grandest Palladian style house in Britain and was also built to house an extensive collection of paintings. The earliest surviving elevations and plans for Holkham are preserved in the British Library and date from the 1720s, for which a payment of 10 guineas was made to Matthew Brettingham the Elder in 1726, these show a house heavily influenced by Houghton, but without any wings, the Marble Hall is as designed by Kent prior to the changes of 1755, plus the Statue Gallery is in a form close to that built. The first design to show the four wings is by Kent dated 1728. An influence on the finished House is Chiswick House designed by Lord Burlington and with interiors by William Kent, the gallery being the basis of the design of the Statue Gallery at Holkham.