The Grand Tour: The British and Americans Abroad

In the 18th Century an essential part of the education of young upper class men was an extensive journey around the European Continent, known as The Grand Tour.  By the mid 19th Century improvements in transport made travel quicker and easier and available to more people.  Young ladies like Lucy Honeychurch in E M Forster’s A Room with a View and Isabel Archer in Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady broadened their minds (and sometimes acquired aristocratic husbands) in foreign lands.

Purple silk moire embroidered outfit designed by Janet Patterson for Nicola Kidman as Isabel Archer in the film The Portrait of a Lady.