Inherited Taste

John Montagu, the second Duke of Montagu (1690-1749), was well-positioned to construct a handsome dining room. His father, Ralph Montagu, the first Duke of Montagu (1638-1709), was a second son whose ambitions, marriages, and affairs led the satirist Jonathan Swift to cheekily declare that he was “as arrant a knave as any in his time.” The Montagu family strengthened its power through agricultural ventures, extensive rental income, and fortuitous nuptials.

At just fifteen, Duke John carried on the tradition of marrying well with a union to Lady Mary Churchill (1689–1751). Today, this name is best known for a certain prime minister — Lady Mary was Sir Winston Churchill’s great-great-great-great aunt — but even in the eighteenth century, she would have been acknowledged as being part of a highly influential family. Her mother, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, was Keeper of the Privy Purse and a close friend of the queen. Duchess Sarah and Queen Anne’s relationship was fictionalized in the satirical dark comedy The Favourite.

Despite these fine formalities, Duke John possessed a light-hearted, lively spirit. In 1740, his mother-in-law wrote wryly, “All his talents lie in things only natural in boys of fifteen years old, and he is about two and fifty; to get people into his garden and wet them with squirts, and to invite people to his country houses and put things in beds to make them itch, and twenty such pretty fancies as these.”

With such a sociable personality, it was natural that Duke John dreamed of the ideal place to host friends. Perhaps he also inherited some of his passion for architecture from his father, who had constructed Montagu House in Bloomsbury, a fashionable part of London. Duke Ralph had so treasured the Bloomsbury location that when the first iteration burned down in 1686, he had it rebuilt shortly after.

Both of Duke Ralph’s Montagu House iterations were lavish homes suited to an up-and-coming nobleman. The first Bloomsbury home was designed by Robert Hooke, a multi-hyphenate best known for pioneering the use of modern microscopes. John Aubrey, a friend and fellow scholar, noted that “he is much made use of in designing buildings […] as he is of prodigious inventive head.” Working alongside celebrated architect Christopher Wren, Hooke was responsible for the designs of still-popular structures such as the Monument to the Great Fire of London (1671-1677) and the Royal Observatory in Greenwich (1675-1676).

Hooke’s design of Montagu House was lush and admired by peers. He worked with some of the finest artists of the time, such as Jacques Rousseau, a French painter whose works can also be found at Versailles, Boughton House, and Windsor Castle, and Antonio Verrio, an Italian Baroque painter who commanded extraordinary fees for his murals at homes like Hampton Court and Chatsworth House. 

Despite its wide popularity, not everyone approved of this ornate style. In his 1731 poem Of the Use of Riches, one in his series of Moral Essays, the sharp-tongued satirist Alexander Pope lashed out at ostentatious extravagance, mockingly writing,

On painted ceilings you devoutly stare,

Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre,

On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie,

And bring all paradise before your eye

If anyone thought similarly during the reconstruction of Montagu House, Bloomsbury, they wisely kept this opinion from Duke Ralph. The post-fire iteration of the home did not stray far from Hooke’s French inspiration. An architect identified as Monsieur Puget, either Pierre or his son, François, designed a seventeen-bay home informed by French and English Baroque aesthetics —a gently sloped mansard roof, dormer windows, and a grand dome with statues standing above a central block. 

Yet despite the splendor of his father’s homes, Duke John had a distinct vision for his own London residence. The Bloomsbury home was largely unused during his time as the Duke, and it was sold to the British government a few years after his death, where it housed a growing antiquities collection that eventually became the site of the British Museum. Instead, Duke John made his camp at Montagu House, Whitehall. 

Montagu House, Whitehall was not quite as grandiose as the Bloomsbury versions, but it was hardly the modest antithesis of Pope’s biting criticism. As his mother-in-law recorded, with no small amount of self-satisfaction, “He has a great estate, and is master of the grand wardrobe, part of my daughter’s portion, which I got him for life, and which I was assured by a very understanding man, he would farm of him, and give him 8,000 pounds a year.” An inflation calculator from the Bank of England estimates that this yearly income in 1740 is equivalent to approximately £1,362,139 in 2025. While there were certainly many expenses associated with running several large estates, this figure allowed Duke John to readily pursue his architectural visions.

These visions were realized by architect Henry Flitcroft (1697-1769), who came from the school of Palladianism. This style follows the principles of Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508-1580), who believed “the ancient Romans, as in many other things, so in building well, vastly excelled at those who have been since their time.” Inigo Jones (1573-1652) brought this style of architecture to England with designs like the Banqueting House on Whitehall (built 1622) and the Queen’s House at Greenwich (built 1616-1635), both of which Duke John would have passed by regularly. Jones and his students would have been less eager to embrace the statues that marked Duke Ralph’s version of Montagu House. Rather, Jones believed that architecture “ought to be solid, proportionable according to the rules, masculine and unaffected.” 

This philosophy explains the look of Montagu House, Whitehall (built 1731-1733). Flitcroft honoured the Palladian style by designing a home with a large central block featuring four sleek Ionic columns topped by a triangular pediment. Tellingly, the surface within the frame of the pediment, called the tympanum, is bare, rather than filled with reliefs. The rest of the home also makes an economic use of ornament, and a low dome is typical of a Palladian form. The result is an elegant, monumental home that would have felt stylish and distinct from other Montagu residences.