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Antiquity was the great theme in British painting in the last decades of the 18th century. Its influence can be traced in two areas particularly - in literature, which often comes close to the macabre, and in the excavations of antique sites, which were followed with intense interest at the time. The excavation sites attracted the British travelers on the Grand Tour, and soon a fever for collecting developed that dominated elegant taste throughout Europe.
Charles Towneley (1737-1805) was the most famous of the many English collectors. Zoffany portrayed him in his library with an imaginary assembly of the entire collection in the one room. He is shown with three friends: Charles Greville, a politician, Thomas Astle, conservator of the British Museum, and Pierre d'Hancarville, French antiquarian. The owner of the house and his counterpart, d'Hancarville, who is wearing a Rococo costume, are seated in Baroque armchairs, but the rest of the interior decoration is in the new style. This is determined by the collection itself, which was later donated to the British Museum.
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