Sir Andrew Fountaine (1676 in Salle,

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

– 4 September 1753 in

Narford Hall Narford is situated in the Breckland District of Norfolk and covers an area of 970 hectares (3.75 square miles). Narford village has all but disappeared, with a population of only 41. At the 2011 Census the population of the area remained less t ...

Narford Narford is situated in the Breckland (district), Breckland District of Norfolk and covers an area of 970 hectares (3.75 square miles). Narford village has all but List of lost settlements in the United Kingdom, disappeared, with a population of o ...

), son and heir of Andrew Fountaine M.P. of Salle, Norfolk and Sarah Chicheley, one of the daughters of Sir

Thomas Chicheley Sir Thomas Chicheley (25 March 1614 – 1 February 1699) of Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire was a politician in England in the seventeenth century who fell from favour in the reign of James II. His name is sometimes spelt as Chichele. Life He was ...

, was an English antiquarian, art collector and amateur architect.

Life

Attending

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...

(as a

King's Scholar A King's Scholar is a foundation scholar (elected on the basis of good academic performance and usually qualifying for reduced fees) of one of certain public schools. These include Eton College; The King's School, Canterbury; The King's School ...

) and then

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

(graduating BA in 1697),

William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire (1672 – 4 June 1729) was a British nobleman and politician. He was the eldest son of William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire and Lady Mary Butler. A prominent Whig, he was sworn of the Privy Counc ...

(a friend of his father) introduced him at court and he received a knighthood in 1699 for the Latin oration he had made to

William III William III or William the Third may refer to: Kings * William III of Sicily (c. 1186–c. 1198) * William III of England and Ireland or William III of Orange or William II of Scotland (1650–1702) * William III of the Netherlands and Luxembourg ...

on his entry to Oxford the previous year (a task he had been selected for by Christ Church's dean

Henry Aldrich Henry Aldrich (15 January 1648 – 14 December 1710) was an English theologian, philosopher, and composer. Life Aldrich was educated at Westminster School under Dr Richard Busby. In 1662, he entered Christ Church, Oxford, and in 1689 was mad ...

). When shortly afterwards

Lord Macclesfield Earl of Macclesfield is a title that has been created twice. The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1679 in favour of the soldier and politician Charles Gerard, 1st Baron Gerard. He had already been created Baron Gerard, of Bra ...

took the

Act of Settlement The Act of Settlement is an Act of the Parliament of England that settled the succession to the English and Irish crowns to only Protestants, which passed in 1701. More specifically, anyone who became a Roman Catholic, or who married one, bec ...

to the

elector of Hanover The Electorate of Hanover (german: Kurfürstentum Hannover or simply ''Kurhannover'') was an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, located in northwestern Germany and taking its name from the capital city of Hanover. It was formally known as ...

in 1701, the younger Andrew Fountaine accompanied him and thus became known in the courts of Europe in what became the first of his two

grand tour The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tuto ...

s. He was in correspondence with

Gottfried Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathem ...

between 1701 and 1704, was admitted to the

Royal Society of Berlin The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (german: Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften), abbreviated BBAW, is the official academic society for the natural sciences and humanities Humanities are academic dis ...

, became friends with

Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo III de' Medici (14 August 1642 – 31 October 1723) was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1670 until his death in 1723, the sixth and penultimate from the House of Medici. He reigned from 1670 to 1723, and was the elder son of Grand Duke Ferdinan ...

on travelling to Italy in 1702, and was part of the mission to the

States General The word States-General, or Estates-General, may refer to: Currently in use * Estates-General on the Situation and Future of the French Language in Quebec, the name of a commission set up by the government of Quebec on June 29, 2000 * States Genera ...

of the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...

in 1705 (using it as an opportunity to add to his book and coin collections). On his father's death in 1707, he was appointed

Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod Black Rod (officially known as the Lady Usher of the Black Rod or, if male, the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod) is an official in the parliaments of several Commonwealth countries. The position originates in the House of Lords of the Parliam ...

for Ireland and, whilst accompanying

Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke and 5th Earl of Montgomery, (c. 165622 January 1733), styled The Honourable Thomas Herbert until 1683, was an English and later British statesman during the reigns of William III and Anne. Background Herbe ...

to open the Irish parliament, became friends with

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...

(as is mentioned in Swift's letters and his ''Journal to Stella''). He took a second grand tour in 1714, collecting maiolica, paintings and sculpture for himself and for the Earls of Pembroke (he later catalogued the 8th Earl's collection for his son the 9th earl). He succeeded Walter Cary as

warden of the Royal Mint Warden of the Mint was a high-ranking position at the Royal Mint in England from 1216 to 1829. The warden was responsible for a variety of minting procedures and acted as the immediate representative of the current monarch inside the mint. The role ...

Aug 12 1727, but retired from London in 1732 or 1733 to redesign the family seat of

(working with the professional architect Roger Morris). At Narford he hung a portrait of his patroness

Caroline of Ansbach , father = John Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach , mother = Princess Eleonore Erdmuthe of Saxe-Eisenach , birth_date = , birth_place = Ansbach, Principality of Ansbach, Holy Roman Empire , death_date = , death_place = St James's Pala ...

on the staircase (she had made him her vice-chamberlain and tutor to her third son, William Augustus, and was William's proxy for his installation as

Knight of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate medieval ceremony for appointing a knight, which involved bathing (as a symbol of purification) as one ...

on 17 June 1725). He died unmarried in

in 1753, and was buried there. When sold and dispersed in 1884, his collection was so large it took four days to auction. His Narford estate passed to his sister Elizabeth and down to her grandson Brigg Price, who changed his surname to Fountaine and adopted his great-uncle's arms.

Portrait miniatures collection

On 28 April 1733, there was a terrible destruction of Fountaine's collection of

portrait miniature A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolor, or enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts, and were popular among 16th-century eli ...

s in a fire at White's Chocolate and Coffee House. Fountaine had rented two rooms at White's to temporarily hold his huge collection of portrait miniatures by

Nicolas Hilliard Nicholas Hilliard () was an English goldsmith and limner best known for his portrait miniatures of members of the courts of Elizabeth I and James I of England. He mostly painted small oval miniatures, but also some larger cabinet miniatures, ...

, the Olivers,

Samuel Cooper Samuel or Sam Cooper may refer to: *Samuel Cooper (painter) (1609–1672), English miniature painter *Samuel Cooper (clergyman) (1725–1783), Congregationalist minister in Boston, Massachusetts * Samuel Cooper (surgeon) (1780–1848), English surge ...

, and others. The entire house burned down; the number of paintings destroyed was so large that the ashes were carefully sifted to recover the gold from the incinerated mountings of the miniatures.

Notes

External links

*
Letters, 'Pignatta's Sir Andrew Fountaine and Friends in the Tribune', 1715, by Graham Pollard
''The Burlington Magazine'' 1986
Portrait bust of Fountaine
by

Louis-François Roubiliac Louis-François Roubiliac (or Roubilliac, or Roubillac) (31 August 1702 – 11 January 1762) was a French sculptor who worked in England. One of the four most prominent sculptors in London working in the rococo style, he was described by Margare ...

Fountaine's tomb at NarfordImages of Fountaine
at the National Portrait Gallery
The Fountain Collection of Maiolica
Andrew Moore, ''The Burlington Magazine'', Vol. 130, No. 1023 (Jun., 1988), pp. 435–447 {{DEFAULTSORT:Fountaine, Andrew 1676 births 1753 deaths 18th-century English architects English art collectors English antiquarians People educated at Eton College People from Broadland (district) Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Knights Bachelor People from Breckland District

Andrew Andrew is the English form of a given name common in many countries. In the 1990s, it was among the top ten most popular names given to boys in List of countries where English is an official language, English-speaking countries. "Andrew" is freq ...

Architects from Norfolk