SEEKING THE BUBBLE REPUTATION.

Sir William Hamilton is well known as a collector and pioneer connoisseur of Greek vases. Hilherto, however, little has been said to illuminate these roles in the context of the eighteenth-century ethical movement of civic humanism as expounded in the writings of Jonathan Richardson and Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury. Previous attempts to dismiss Hamilton's activities in collecting and publishing his first vase collection as being motivated by purely commercial interests have failed to grasp the full complexity of his place in the development of eighteenth-century taste and the burgeoning art market, and undervalue his status as a promoter of Enlightenment learning through association with d'Hancarville. Hamilton's public persona is further examined through hitherto unpublished research shedding new light on his previously untraced collection of marble sculpture sold in London in 1801. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]