The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague is presenting "The Grand Tour - Destination Italy," an extraordinary exhibition that transports visitors back to the 17th and 18th centuries when young English aristocrats embarked on multi-year educational journeys to Italy. The show features luxury souvenirs and artworks acquired during these prestigious travels, including paintings, sculptures, and furniture from three English castles that served as impressive mementos of their continental adventures.
One of the exhibition's highlights is a striking portrait by Pompeo Batoni from 1774, depicting nineteen-year-old Thomas William Coke, later Earl of Leicester. Dressed in a silk suit, Coke leans casually against a balustrade with the famous ancient sculpture of sleeping Ariadne from the Vatican visible behind him. His gaze extends beyond the viewer into the distance, with a slightly embarrassed smile playing on his lips. Batoni, known as the inventor of the tourist portrait, specialized in painting young English nobles who undertook the Grand Tour.
According to Maria de Peverelli, art historian and head of the art collection at Holkham Hall - a castle about 200 kilometers north of London where the Earls of Leicester still reside - these portraits served the same purpose as today's selfies or smartphone snapshots, proving where travelers had been. The painting normally hangs in the salon above a red velvet sofa at Holkham Hall. Legend has it that the portrait was a gift from the Countess of Albany, whose features allegedly inspired the Ariadne sculpture, and Coke supposedly wore the silk suit when they first met at a Roman ball.
The exhibition, running from mid-September 2025 through January 4, 2026, invites visitors on a journey of discovery with the privileged class before mass tourism existed. It showcases how a new form of art trade emerged, with artists particularly profiting from these wealthy travelers. The displayed items - paintings, sculptures, and furniture pieces - represent oversized souvenirs often purchased directly from sculptors' and painters' studios during the Grand Tour.
John Russell, the fourth Duke of Bedford, exemplified this extravagant shopping behavior by commissioning a series of 24 city views from Canaletto in Venice to decorate - or rather wallpaper - the dining room at his family seat, Woburn Abbey. Dutch artist Caspar van Wittel, known as Vanvitelli, also specialized in painting such "postcards avant la lettre." His topographically accurate views of Rome were highly sought after by Grand Tour travelers, with sixteen versions of St. Peter's Square alone created for his English clientele. Idealized Italian landscapes by Claude Lorrain were equally popular travel souvenirs.
Thomas Coke, first Earl of Leicester and great-uncle of Thomas William Coke, was one of Lorrain's most important collectors. He completed the longest and best-documented Grand Tour, departing at age fifteen and returning at 21. During those six years, he amassed art to fill his future home, Holkham Hall, which he had built in the Palladian style. When money ran short during his travels, he sent convincing begging letters home, according to Holkham Hall archivist Lucy Purvis. Since the young earl was accompanied by an accountant who recorded all expenses in a ledger, both his exact travel route and the prices of many acquired artworks are known.
Coke's final major purchase was a painting by Anthony van Dyck, "The Duke of Arenberg." He acquired the artwork during a stopover in Paris on his return journey for 4,500 French livres - equivalent to approximately 40,000 pounds or 46,000 euros today, Purvis notes. On the same occasion, he purchased a fully spring-suspended berline carriage for 3,078 livres, essentially the sports car among contemporary travel coaches, comparable to a Porsche. "Men will be men," the archivist says with a smile. "He wanted to make an impression upon his return. His bride, whom he had never seen, was waiting for him. They would marry a week later."
At the main destinations of the Grand Tour - Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples - travelers were met by so-called "ciceroni": art and antiquities dealers who quickly adapted to this new art market segment and guided young Englishmen. A key figure was Scottish-born James Byres, who maintained excellent contacts with artists and nobles wanting to sell art in Rome. Byres had initially tried his hand as an artist but quickly realized it was far more lucrative to act as an intermediary. He organized multi-week group tours of the Eternal City specifically for Grand Tour travelers, inviting them to breakfast and dinner while trying to stay ahead of competitors in the Roman Grand Tour business, such as Briton Thomas Jenkins.
Artists also competed for the favor of these new customers. The great Batoni faced competition from a young woman: Angelica Kauffmann also painted portraits of cavalier travelers in Rome. Her portrait of Brownlow Cecil, ninth Earl of Exeter, represents another highlight of the Mauritshuis exhibition. The painter immortalized him in a red doublet, matching the volcano in the background - unmistakably Vesuvius. "You had to have seen it," emphasizes Jon Culverhouse, curator of the art collection at Burghley House, the country seat of the Earls of Exeter where the Kauffmann portrait is normally kept.
For Culverhouse, the ultimate travel souvenir stands in the dining room of the estate: a table made of colored mosaic stones that look like marble. "But that's wrong: they're polished lava stones," the curator explains. "There's no better souvenir than this: I've seen Etna! Vesuvius! I was there on site! Look what I brought back!" The exhibition also includes works by Pietro Fabris, including "The Eruption of Vesuvius in 1767," which transforms viewers into disaster tourists of sorts.
The exhibition reveals that even educational travelers seeking impressive souvenirs were not immune to forgeries. A small lion sculpture made of pink marble proves this point. A Roman cicerone had assured Brownlow Cecil that it came from Roman Emperor Hadrian's summer palace and was more than 1,600 years old. In reality, the little lion was created only in the 18th century - during the Grand Tourist's own lifetime.
"The Grand Tour - Destination Italy" runs at the Mauritshuis in The Hague from September 18, 2025, to January 4, 2026, with an accompanying catalog available for 26.95 euros.
