Thomas Jenkins (antiquary)

Thomas Jenkins (ca. 1722–1798) was a British antiquary and painter who went to Rome accompanying the British landscape-painter Richard Wilson about 1750 and remained behind, establishing himself in the city by serving as cicerone and sometime banker to the visiting British, becoming a dealer in Roman sculpture and antiquities to a largely British clientele and an agent for gentlemen who wished a portrait or portrait-bust as a memento of the Grand Tour.

Thomas Jenkins was born in Rome in 1722, in the parish of Santa Maria del Popolo Afterwards he studied painting in Britain, and from 1753 practised as a painter in Rome, where he associated with the painters Richard Wilson and Gavin Hamilton. Like several other artists in Rome, Jenkins judged that he could make a better living as a guide and dealer than as a painter; and in the course of time he became the leading connoisseur and antiquary to British visitors.

His manoeuvres to keep other artists in Rome from direct contact with visiting potential clients appear like a leitmotiv in the letters written from Rome and Tivoli in 1758 by the artist Jonathan Skelton, described as a "Jacobite" by Jenkins. Among the antiquities that passed through Jenkins's hands, often improved by restorers like Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, was a version of the Discobolus discovered in Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, which Jenkins sold to Charles Townley (now in the British Museum, London). Jenkins also exported paintings to London. Jenkins also helped form the collections of William Petty (later Lord Shelburne and Lord Lansdowne), Henry Blundell (on his Grand Tour in 1765–66, for Ince Blundell Hall, Lancashire, including the 'Jenkins Venus' or "Barberini Venus" from Palazzo Barberini) and Lyde Browne of Wimbledon (which were eventually bought by Empress Catherine II for the Hermitage).

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