The art collection of Holkham Hall in Norfolk, England, remains very largely that which the original owner intended the house to display; the house was designed around the art collection acquired (a few works were commissioned) by Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, during his Grand Tour of Italy during 1712–18. To complete the scheme it was necessary to send Matthew Brettingham the younger to Rome between 1747 and 1754 to purchase further works of art.
The design of the house was a collaborative effort between Thomas Coke, Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, and William Kent, with Matthew Brettingham the elder acting as the on-site architect. The house was built between 1736 and 1764, with work on the interiors only completed in 1771. By 1769 all the men involved had died, leaving Thomas's widow, Lady Margaret Tufton, Countess of Leicester (1700–1775), to oversee the completion of the house. Their only child to survive infancy, Edward Coke, Viscount Coke, had died without issue in 1753.
The house is designed with a corps de logis containing the state rooms on the first floor (piano nobile), surrounded by four wings: to the south-west the family wing, to the north-west the guest wing, to the south-east the chapel wing and to the north-east the kitchen wing. With all the intervening doors open it is possible to stand in the Long Library and look down the full length of the southern State Rooms and see the east window of the Chapel in the opposing wing the full 344 feet (105 m) length of the house. The family wing is a self-contained residence, meant for daily living.
The Marble Hall is in the centre of the north front. To its west is the North Dining Room (also called the State Dining Room), then along the west side of the corps de logis is the Statue Gallery, to its east on the south front is the Drawing Room, then the Saloon, South Dining Room, Landscape Room north of which on the east side of the corps de logis is the Green State Bedroom, Green State Dressing Room, North State Dressing Room, the North State Bedroom, and finally to the west the State Sitting Room with the Marble Hall to its west.
Much thought went into the placing of sculptures and paintings, involving subtle connections and contrasts in the mythological and historical characters and stories depicted. The state rooms were designed with symmetrical arrangements of doors, windows and fireplaces; this meant that some walls have false doors to balance real doors. This need for balance and harmony extended to the placing of sculpture, paintings and furniture, each artwork being balanced by a piece of similar size though sometimes of contrasting subject matter. Examples are the two paintings commissioned by Thomas Coke above the fireplaces in the Saloon, Tarquin Raping Lucretia and Perseus and Andromeda. In the first painting Sextus Tarquinius, the son of the last king of Rome, is violating a woman, while in the second painting a man is rescuing a woman from being killed. The result of the rape of Lucretia is the overthrow of a tyrant; the rescue of Andromeda results in Perseus becoming a king. Other connections are the sculptures in the two exedras of the Statue Gallery: in the southern one are two satyrs, symbols of ungoverned passion and lust, while opposite are the virgin Athena, goddess of wisdom, and Ceres, the preserver of marriage and sacred law. In the Landscape Room it is possible to go from looking at the paintings to looking through the window at a real Landscape garden, one influenced by the images on the walls.
The works collected in Italy include: sculpture, paintings, mosaics, books, manuscripts and old master drawings (most of which have been sold). The books included one of Leonardo da Vinci's note books now known as the Codex Leicester which was sold from the collection in 1980.
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