Philipp von Stosch

In 1709, with the blessings of his father, a successful artist who became Mayor (German: Bürgermeister) of Küstrin, Stosch began a tour of Holland, France, and England, which eventually led him to Italy.

[1] He financed his passions by some unorthodox means, including spying on the Jacobite court in Rome for Sir Robert Walpole's British Government.

He was forced to flee the Papal States and took refuge in Florence, under the tolerant rule of Grand Duke Gian Gastone de' Medici.

Datenbank Altertumswissenschaften) Stosch was a founder of a Masonic Lodge in Florence in 1733, that became a direct concern of Rome, leading to the ban on Catholics becoming Freemasons.

Stosch is credited with making the monocle fashionable, but as a connoisseur, Stosch made his lasting impression with a great volume on the subject of Gemmæ Antiquæ Cælatæ (Pierres antiques graveés) (1724), in which Bernard Picart's engravings reproduced seventy antique carved hardstones like onyx, jasper and carnelian from European collections, a volume of inestimable value to antiquarians and historians.

It immediately joined the repertory of books of engravings after antiquities of all kinds, which were an essential part of eighteenth century classical studies and informed the Neoclassical styles that got under way shortly after Stosch's death.

[4] At Burton Constable Hall, Yorkshire, the Dining Room overmantel relief executed in the 1760s features Bacchus and Ariadne riding on a panther, modeled on a cameo from the volume.

Description des Pierres gravées provided subjects for the familiar Neoclassical jasperware medallions in low relief, against green or blue grounds, which were produced in great number by Josiah Wedgwood.

Individual figures were re-engraved for Gentleman's Magazine and found their way into Neoclassical marquetry medallions on London-made furniture and other minor decorative arts.

The Codex Stosch, a bound volume of measured drawings of ancient Roman buildings made by the brother of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, disappeared after the sale.

[9] His widely circulated letters on antiquarian subjects were reassembled in Carl Justi, Antiquarische Briefe des Baron Philipp von Stosch (1871).