National Portrait Gallery | Education | Portraits in Disguise

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Thomas Hope in Turkish Costume by Sir William Beechey, exhibited 1799	John Baker Holroy, 1st Earl of Sheffield by Henry Edridge, 1798 NPG 2185 (Detail)
A collector, virtuoso and writer, Thomas Hope (1770-1831) coined the term 'interior design'. A Dutchman, he left Amsterdam in 1787 and spent eight years travelling the the Levant (spending almost a year in Constantinople - the domed roofs of which we see behind him in the painting). In 1794 he settled in London, and in 1779 bought a house in Robert Adam's Portland development in Duchess Street; this portrait hung in the entrance hall. He remodelled the place in neo-classical style and the whole was recorded in a book Household Furniture and Interior Design, published in1807. Lord Glenbervie said of him in 1801: ' the richest but undoubtedly far from the most agreeable man in Europe'. English travellers to the East often wore semi-Turkish dress. Hope's attire however is completely Turkish and was owned by the sitter; the waistcoats are also held in the collection of the NPG.	The tight fitting double breasted coat with wide revers and 'stand and fall' collar has lost all its fullness of previous years, as have the breeches which fit tightly to the legs. The short waistcoat now cuts straight and is visible below the squared-off coat fronts.
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