Art collections of Holkham Hall

The art collection of Holkham Hall in Norfolk, England, remains very largely that which the original owner intended the house to display; the house was designed around the art collection acquired by Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, during his Grand Tour of Italy during 1712–18. To complete the scheme it was necessary to send Matthew Brettingham the younger to Rome between 1747 and 1754 to purchase further works of art.

The design of the house was a collaborative effort between Thomas Coke, Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, and William Kent, with Matthew Brettingham the elder acting as the on-site architect. The house was built between 1736 and 1764, with work on the interiors only completed in 1771. By 1769 all the men involved had died, leaving Thomas's widow, Lady Margaret Tufton, Countess of Leicester , to oversee the completion of the house. Their only child to survive infancy, Edward Coke, Viscount Coke, had died without issue in 1753.

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