Richard Payne Knight (1751-1824) as Scholar-Collector: Collecting, Learning and Connoisseurship in the Age of Enlightenment

Richard Payne Knight was one of the most distinguished antiquarians, collectors and art connoisseurs of the Regency period. In addition to being one of Britain’s great collectors, he was thoroughly engaged in the intellectual debates of his time, whether the subject was aesthetics and taste, attempts to restore the Homeric epics to their original form, or interpreting ancient art, religion and mythology. His collection, therefore, reflected not only his taste, but the intellectual questions which he found most compelling, and it often served as an important resource for his philological, numismatic and art historical work.

Knight bequeathed his collection of antiquities, coins and drawings to the British Museum in 1824. This bequest was among the earliest arrivals of first-rate ancient bronzes and drawings in the British Museum, and his collection of Ancient Greek coins allowed the Museum to finally rival the great public coin cabinets in Europe.

This seminar will explore the relationship between Knight’s collecting activities and his intellectual and scholarly interests - as well as his taste - and set it firmly within the cultural and intellectual context of his time.

Vivien Bird is a doctoral candidate at the University of Buckingham, and her research is focused on the intellectual and collecting activities of the Enlightenment classical scholar, numismatist, collector and art connoisseur Richard Payne Knight (1751-1824). Prior to embarking on her PhD, she was the Anne Christopherson Fellow in the British Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings. Vivien’s special interests include the reception of antiquity in European art and culture, the history of art and collecting, the history of scholarship and antiquarianism from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, and the history of numismatics. 

- but booking is required.