242 x 168 mm, paperback, 96 pages, 80 illustrations
PRICE: £12.95
ISBN: 978 1 903470 04 6
Stowe House has been described as "the largest and most completely realised private neo-classical building in the world". The extraordinary family who built and re-built Stowe played a crucial role in the arts and politics of the Georgian age. Four prime ministers came from this or the closely related Pitt family, and with them and their house were associated a roll-call of artistic figures - to mention only Pope and Horace Walpole, Vanbrugh and Kent, Adam and Soane.An incredibly ambitious show-palace of more than 400 rooms, shaped and developed by many hands, Stowe played a defining role in the history of English taste.
This comprehensive guide to Stowe House (which fortunately is richly documented) gives an account not only of the great State rooms but also of the remainder of the house and of the outbuildings now so well known to the resident pupils of the present Stowe School. There are refereneces too to the splendid contents, mostly dispersed in three major sales in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Watercolours and fine archival photographs help to illustrate the house's glory, while chapters of Stowe School and on the current restoration y the Stowe House Preservation Trust shed light on Stowe's recent history and its future.
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