[Coke of Holkham] (b London, May 6, 1752; d Longford Hall, Derbys, June 30, 1842). English patron and collector, great-nephew of Thomas Coke. He was the eldest son of Robert Wenman Coke and Elizabeth Chamberlayne, and he was created 1st Earl of Leicester of the eighth creation in 1837. After leaving Eton College, Coke embarked on the Grand Tour, going abroad in August 1771 and returning to England by July 1774. Although it was traditionally held that Princess Louisa of Stolberg, wife of Charles Edward Stuart, commissioned the magnificent portrait of Coke by Pompeo Batoni (1774; Holkham Hall, Norfolk), it is likely that Coke himself commissioned it in Rome. From there, Coke made an excursion to Naples and visited Herculaneum. He developed a keen antiquarian taste; one of his most prized acquisitions in Rome was an antique Roman mosaic representing a lion and leopard in combat (Holkham Hall, Norfolk, Lib.). He also purchased two marble reliefs, one by Stoldo di Gino Lorenzi, Cosimo I Receiving Tribute from the Towns of Tuscany...