Thomas Hope was a member of a very wealthy and powerful family of Amsterdam merchants and bankers who had Scottish ancestors. From an early age he had a limited interest in involving himself directly in the daily running of the lucrative family business, Hope & Co—the source of his considerable wealth—and 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 of Mediterranean countries. In 1795, in the wake of the Napoleonic occupation of Amsterdam, Hope resettled in London where he was to establish himself as a scholar of world civilisations, a collector of the arts, and a patron of artists and craftsmen for the rest of his life. It was also during 1795 that Hope began his extensive…

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Citation: Nolan, Jeremiah. "Thomas Hope". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 October 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2201, accessed 25 November 2024.]