The Lure of the Grand Tour

More than just an upper class form of early tourism that reached a pinnacle in ' the eighteenth century, the fashion for embarking on a grand tour of Europe had enormous repercussions on the taste and attitudes of those who returned.

A major new exhibition opening at the Tate Gallery in London this month focuses on Italy – perhaps the most influential and certainly the most popular of Grand Tour destinations, with its classical appeal and fine art and architecture.

Among other first-time loans to Britain from the Vatican museums is the partnering sculpture to this 2nd century AD marble of a bitch caressing a dog, excavated by Gavin Hamilton in 1773 and acquired by Charles Townley the following year. Reuniting them after more than 200 years, the Vatican will be lending the opposite duo of a dog nuzzling a bitch, excavated at the same time and also pursued by Townley for his collection, as the finer of the two sets, but export was refused and this pair remained in Italy.