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Arthur Stannard Vernay (11 May 1877 – 25 October 1960) was a noted English-born American art and antiques dealer, decorator, big-game hunter, and naturalist explorer. He sponsored and took part in expeditions across the world to collect biological specimens and cultural artifacts on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History. The Vernay-Faunthorpe Hall of South Asian mammals in the AMNH is named after him.

Early life[edit]

Born in Weymouth, England, Vernay was born to Louisa Stannard and Thomas Crabb Avant. Shortly after his parents divorced, he emigrated to New York in August 1904 and changed his surname from Avant to Vernay. He found a job as an elevator operator at a furniture store known as A.J. Crawfords and after working there briefly, Vernay started his own shop in 1906, called Arthur S. Vernay, Inc. located at 1 East 45th Street, near Madison Avenue. He also had a shop in London at 217 Piccadilly in the late 1910s to 1920s. He sold antiques and decorative artworks to a number of important and influential New Yorkers including Ogden Codman Jr., Elsie de Wolfe, Sir Charles Carrick Allom, Consuelo Vanderbilt, Francis Patrick Garvan, Benjamin Altman, Solomon R. Guggenheim, William Russell Grace, as well as leading art dealerships such as M Knoedler & Co, and the design firm Tiffany Studios.^[1] From the 1920s to the early 1940s, he had a shop at 19 East 54th Street in New York.^[2]

Travel and hunting[edit]

In the 1920s, Vernay grew increasingly interested in game hunting and naturalist exploration. In 1921 he stayed at the Biligirirangans with Ralph Camroux Morris and saw wild animals in nature for the first time. He returned to the US and then sponsored a collecting expedition led by Colonel John Champion Faunthorpe intended to enhance the American Museum of Natural History's collection of Southeast Asian animals, Vernay joined Faunthorpe in India in 1923. This expedition culminated in the American Museum of Natural History's Vernay-Faunthorpe Hall of South Asiatic Mammals, which opened in 1930 and held mounted elephants shot by the collectors in Mysore.^[3] He was elected Vice Patron of the Bombay Natural History Society in 1928. Vernay shot the rare Javan rhinoceros near Telok Anson in 1932 along with Guy Rowley while searching for Schomburg's deer. It was the last of its species in Perak.^[4] In 1935 he became a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History and in the same year he accompanied Charles Suydam Cutting to Tibet where they met the Dalai Lama. His last expedition was to Africa in 1946. Around the same time he became very interested in orchids.^[5]

Bahamas[edit]

Vernay sold off his company in the 1940s (it was then run by Stephen Jussel) and moved to Nassau, Bahamas, where he cultivated an orchid greenhouse, collected species from South America, participated in environmental conservation efforts, co-founding the Bahamas National Trust and the Society for the Preservation of the Flamingo. In the Bahamas, Vernay lived with his wife Marion Kelley (married 1908) at their home, Los Cayos, and was part of an expatriate social community that included the Duke of Windsor and Duchess of Windsor, the Swedish entrepreneur Axel Wenner-Gren, and hosted the English author Ian Fleming when he visited the Bahamas in 1956 before writing both Dr. No and Thunderball. Fleming accompanied Vernay and Robert Cushman Murphy along with his friend and OSS agent Ivar Felix Bryce, to Inagua which had the largest flamingo colony in the world.

Expeditions[edit]

The major expeditions sponsored by Vernay include:

Faunthorpe-Vernay Expedition to India, 1923
Vernay-Angola Expedition, 1925
Vernay-Archbold Expedition to Madagascar, 1929
Vernay Scientific Survey of the Eastern Ghats (with collectors V.S. LaPersonne and N.A. Baptista), 1929
Vernay-Lang Kalahari Expedition for Field Museum, 1930–31^[6]^[7]
Vernay-Hopwood Upper Chindwin expedition, 1935 (S.F. Hopwood was the chief conservator of forests in Burma)
Vernay-Cutting Burma Expedition, 1938-39 (with Charles Suydam Cutting)^[8]
Vernay Nyasaland Expedition, 1946

Eponymy[edit]

A large number of species and subspecies described from specimens collected on his expeditions have been named after him including the fish Hypsibarbus vernayi, the Spottail Barb Enteromius afrovernayi, the climbing mouse Dendromus vernayi, the rodent genus Vernaya^[9] and the Angolan file snake, Mehelya vernayi.^[10]

Vernay's business papers are in the Winterthur library through his friend Henry Francis du Pont.

References[edit]

^ "The Business Papers of Arthur S. Vernay, Inc". The Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library. Retrieved 3 January 2013.
^ "Minnie E. Young House" (PDF). New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. 22 November 2016. Retrieved 13 May 2021.
^ Osborn, HF (1942). Proboscidea. Volume 2. New York: AMNH. p. 1311.
^ Loch, Charles W. (937). "The Javan or lesser one-horned rhinoceros and its geographical distribution". Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 15: 131–149.
^ Morris, R.C. (1961). "Obituary. Arthur Stannard Vernay". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 58: 249–250.
^ "Field Museum News". January 1930. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
^ "Field Museum News". November 1930. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
^ Ward, F. Kingdon (1941). "The Vernay-Cutting Expedition, November, 1938, to April, 1939: Report on the Vegetation and Flora of the Hpimaw and Htawgaw Hills, Northern Burma". Brittonia. 4 (1): 1–19. doi:10.2307/2804984. JSTOR 2804984. S2CID 38972960.
^ Lunde, DP (2007). "MAMMALIAN SPECIES: Vernaya fulva" (PDF). 806: 1–3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2012. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^ Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Vernay", p. 274).

External links[edit]

[1] "The Business Papers of Arthur S. Vernay, Inc". The Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library. Retrieved 3 January 2013.

[2] "Minnie E. Young House" (PDF). New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. 22 November 2016. Retrieved 13 May 2021.

[3] Osborn, HF (1942). Proboscidea. Volume 2. New York: AMNH. p. 1311.

[4] Loch, Charles W. (937). "The Javan or lesser one-horned rhinoceros and its geographical distribution". Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 15: 131–149.

[5] Morris, R.C. (1961). "Obituary. Arthur Stannard Vernay". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 58: 249–250.

[6] "Field Museum News". January 1930. Retrieved 6 May 2020.

[7] "Field Museum News". November 1930. Retrieved 6 May 2020.

[8] Ward, F. Kingdon (1941). "The Vernay-Cutting Expedition, November, 1938, to April, 1939: Report on the Vegetation and Flora of the Hpimaw and Htawgaw Hills, Northern Burma". Brittonia. 4 (1): 1–19. doi:10.2307/2804984. JSTOR 2804984. S2CID 38972960.

[9] Lunde, DP (2007). "MAMMALIAN SPECIES: Vernaya fulva" (PDF). 806: 1–3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2012. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

[10] Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Vernay", p. 274).

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@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
+{{Short description|American antiques dealer and big-game hunter (1877–1960)}}
-[[File:Arthur Vernay.jpg|thumb|Arthur S. Vernay c. 1923]]
+{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
-'''Arthur Stannard Vernay''' (11 May 1877 - 25 October 1960) was a noted English-born American art and antiques dealer, decorator, big game hunter and naturalist explorer. He sponsored numerous expeditions on behalf of the [[American Museum of Natural History]] across the world to collect biological specimens and cultural artefacts. The Vernay-Faunthorpe Hall of South Asian mammals in the AMNH is named after him.
+[[File:Arthur Vernay.jpg|thumb|Arthur S. Vernay c. 1923|alt=Vernay standing with gun in hand]]
+'''Arthur Stannard Vernay''' (11 May 1877&nbsp;– 25 October 1960) was a noted English-born American art and antiques dealer, decorator, big-game hunter, and naturalist explorer. He sponsored and took part in expeditions across the world to collect biological specimens and cultural artifacts on behalf of the [[American Museum of Natural History]]. The Vernay-Faunthorpe Hall of South Asian mammals in the AMNH is named after him.
 == Early life ==
+[[File:Vernay_ad.jpg|thumb|upright|Advertisement for Vernay's store in ''Country Life'' (1916)|alt=|left]]
-Born in Weymouth, England, Vernay (his original surname is said to have been Avant and he changed to Vernay in 1903 or 1904) immigrated to New York early in the twentieth century, and found a job as an elevator operator at a furniture store known as A.J. Crawfords. After working there briefly, Vernay started his own shop in 1906, called Arthur S. Vernay, Inc. and located at 1 East 45th Street, near Madison Avenue. He also had a shop in London at 217 Piccadilly in the late 1910s to 1920s There he sold antiques and decorative arts to a number of important and influential New Yorkers including [[Ogden Codman, Jr.]], [[Elsie de Wolfe]], [[Sir Charles Carrick Allom]], [[Consuelo Vanderbilt]], [[Francis Patrick Garvan]], [[Benjamin Altman]], [[Solomon R. Guggenheim]], [[William Russell Grace]], as well as leading art dealerships such as [[M Knoedler & Co]],  and the design firm [[Tiffany Studios]].<ref>{{cite web|title=The Business Papers of Arthur S. Vernay, Inc.|url=http://findingaid.winterthur.org/html/HTML_Finding_Aids/COL0739.htm|publisher=The Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library|accessdate=3 January 2013}}</ref>
+Born in Weymouth, England, Vernay was born to Louisa Stannard and Thomas Crabb Avant. Shortly after his parents divorced, he emigrated to New York in August 1904 and changed his surname from Avant to Vernay. He found a job as an elevator operator at a furniture store known as A.J. Crawfords and after working there briefly, Vernay started his own shop in 1906, called Arthur S. Vernay, Inc. located at 1 East 45th Street, near Madison Avenue. He also had a shop in London at 217 Piccadilly in the late 1910s to 1920s. He sold antiques and decorative artworks to a number of important and influential New Yorkers including [[Ogden Codman Jr.]], [[Elsie de Wolfe]], [[Sir Charles Carrick Allom]], [[Consuelo Vanderbilt]], [[Francis Patrick Garvan]], [[Benjamin Altman]], [[Solomon R. Guggenheim]], [[William Russell Grace]], as well as leading art dealerships such as [[M Knoedler & Co]],  and the design firm [[Tiffany Studios]].<ref>{{cite web|title=The Business Papers of Arthur S. Vernay, Inc.|url=http://findingaid.winterthur.org/html/HTML_Finding_Aids/COL0739.htm|publisher=The Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library|access-date=3 January 2013}}</ref> From the 1920s to the early 1940s, he had a shop at [[19 East 54th Street]] in New York.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/2577.pdf|title=Minnie E. Young House|date=22 November 2016|publisher=[[New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission]]|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=13 May 2021}}</ref>
 == Travel and hunting ==
+[[File:Vernay Faunthorpe (cropped).jpg|thumb|left|Vernay seated on elephant shot in the Biligirirangan Hills (1923) which is now in the South Asia hall of the AMNH|alt=]]
-In the 1920s, Vernay grew increasingly interested in game hunting and naturalist exploration. In 1921 he stayed at the Biligirirangans with [[Ralph Camroux Morris]] and saw wild animals in nature for the first time. He sponsored a collecting expedition led by Colonel [[John Champion Faunthorpe]] intended to enhance the [[American Museum of Natural History]]'s collection of Southeast Asian animals, Vernay joined Faunthorpe into India in 1923. Eventually this expedition would culminate in the [[American Museum of Natural History]]'s Vernay-Faunthorpe Hall of South Asiatic Mammals, which opened in 1930 and held mounted elephants shot by the collectors in Mysore.<ref>{{cite book|url= https://archive.org/stream/proboscideamonog02osbo#page/1311/mode/1up/search/Vernay|page=1311|title=Proboscidea. Volume 2| author=Osborn, HF|year=1942|publisher=AMNH| place= New York}}</ref> He was elected Vice Patron of the [[Bombay Natural History Society]] in 1928. In 1935 he became a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History and in the same year he accompanied [[C. Suydam Cutting|Charles Suydam Cutting]] to Tibet where they met the [[Dalai Lama]]. His last expedition was to Africa in 1946. Around the same time he became very interested in orchids.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Morris, R.C.|year=1961|title=Obituary. Arthur Stannard Vernay|url=https://archive.org/details/journalofbombay581961bomb/page/249|journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society|volume=58|pages=249-250}}</ref>
+In the 1920s, Vernay grew increasingly interested in game hunting and naturalist exploration. In 1921 he stayed at the Biligirirangans with [[Ralph Camroux Morris]] and saw wild animals in nature for the first time. He returned to the US and then sponsored a collecting expedition led by Colonel [[John Champion Faunthorpe]] intended to enhance the [[American Museum of Natural History]]'s collection of Southeast Asian animals, Vernay joined Faunthorpe in India in 1923. This expedition culminated in the [[American Museum of Natural History]]'s Vernay-Faunthorpe Hall of South Asiatic Mammals, which opened in 1930 and held mounted elephants shot by the collectors in Mysore.<ref>{{cite book|url= https://archive.org/stream/proboscideamonog02osbo#page/1311/mode/1up/search/Vernay|page=1311|title=Proboscidea. Volume 2| author=Osborn, HF|year=1942|publisher=AMNH| place= New York}}</ref> He was elected Vice Patron of the [[Bombay Natural History Society]] in 1928. Vernay shot the rare Javan rhinoceros near Telok Anson in 1932 along with Guy Rowley while searching for Schomburg's deer. It was the last of its species in Perak.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Loch, Charles W. |year=937 |title=The Javan or lesser one-horned rhinoceros and its geographical distribution |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.280667/page/n286/mode/1up |journal=Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society |volume=15 |pages=131–149}}</ref> In 1935 he became a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History and in the same year he accompanied [[C. Suydam Cutting|Charles Suydam Cutting]] to Tibet where they met the [[Dalai Lama]]. His last expedition was to Africa in 1946. Around the same time he became very interested in orchids.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Morris, R.C.|year=1961|title=Obituary. Arthur Stannard Vernay|url=https://archive.org/details/journalofbombay581961bomb/page/249|journal=Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society|volume=58|pages=249–250}}</ref>
 == Bahamas ==
-Vernay sold off his company in the 1940s (it was then run by Stephen Jussel) and moved to [[Nassau, Bahamas]], where he cultivated an orchid greenhouse, collected species from South America, participated in environmental conservation efforts, co-founding the [[Bahamas National Trust]] and the Society for the Preservation of the Flamingo. In the Bahamas, Vernay lived with his wife Marion Kelley (married 1908) at their home, Los Cayos, and was part of an [[expatriat|expatriate]] social community that included the [[Duke of Windsor]] and [[Duchess of Windsor]], the Swedish entrepreneur [[Axel Wenner-Gren]], and hosted the English author [[Ian Fleming]] when he visited the Bahamas in 1956 before writing both ''[[Dr. No (novel)|Dr. No]]'' and ''[[Thunderball (novel)|Thunderball]]''. Fleming accompanied Vernay and [[Robert Cushman Murphy]] along with his friend and [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] agent Ivar Felix Bryce, to Inagua which had the largest flamingo colony in the world.
+[[File:Vernay Nassau.jpg|thumb|Vernay's home in Los Cayos, Nassau (1939)|alt=]]Vernay sold off his company in the 1940s (it was then run by Stephen Jussel) and moved to [[Nassau, Bahamas]], where he cultivated an orchid greenhouse, collected species from South America, participated in environmental conservation efforts, co-founding the [[Bahamas National Trust]] and the Society for the Preservation of the Flamingo. In the Bahamas, Vernay lived with his wife Marion Kelley (married 1908) at their home, Los Cayos, and was part of an [[expatriat]]e social community that included the [[Duke of Windsor]] and [[Duchess of Windsor]], the Swedish entrepreneur [[Axel Wenner-Gren]], and hosted the English author [[Ian Fleming]] when he visited the Bahamas in 1956 before writing both ''[[Dr. No (novel)|Dr. No]]'' and ''[[Thunderball (novel)|Thunderball]]''. Fleming accompanied Vernay and [[Robert Cushman Murphy]] along with his friend and [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] agent Ivar Felix Bryce, to Inagua which had the largest flamingo colony in the world.
-Several species collected on his expeditions have been named after him including the rodent genus ''[[Vernaya]]''<ref>{{cite journal|title=MAMMALIAN SPECIES: ''Vernaya fulva''.|year=2007| volume=806| pages=1–3| author=Lunde, DP|url=http://www.science.smith.edu/msi/pdf/i1545-1410-806-1-1.pdf}}{{dead link|date=July 2018}}</ref> and the Angolan file snake, ''[[Mehelya|Mehelya vernayi]]''.<ref>Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. {{ISBN|978-1-4214-0135-5}}. ("Vernay", p. 274).</ref>{{Portal|Art}}
 ==Expeditions==
-[[File:Vernay Nassau.jpg|thumb|Vernay's home in Nassau (1939)|alt=]]The major expeditions sponsored by Vernay include:
+The major expeditions sponsored by Vernay include:
 * Faunthorpe-Vernay Expedition to India, 1923
 * Vernay-Angola Expedition, 1925
 * Vernay-Archbold Expedition to Madagascar, 1929
 * Vernay Scientific Survey of the Eastern Ghats (with collectors V.S. LaPersonne and N.A. Baptista), 1929
+* Vernay-Lang Kalahari Expedition for [[Field Museum of Natural History|Field Museum]], 1930–31<ref>{{Cite web|title=Field Museum News|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4376562|date=January 1930|access-date=6 May 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Field Museum News|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/4376604|date=November 1930|access-date=6 May 2020}}</ref>
-* Vernay-Lang Kalahari Expedition, 1930-31
 * Vernay-Hopwood Upper Chindwin expedition, 1935 (S.F. Hopwood was the chief conservator of forests in Burma)
-* Vernay-Cutting Burma Expedition, 1938-39 (with [[Charles Suydam Cutting]])<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ward|first=F. Kingdon|date=1941|title=The Vernay-Cutting Expedition, November, 1938, to April, 1939: Report on the Vegetation and Flora of the Hpimaw and Htawgaw Hills, Northern Burma|url=http://link.springer.com/10.2307/2804984|journal=Brittonia|volume=4|issue=1|pages=1|doi=10.2307/2804984|via=}}</ref>
+* Vernay-Cutting Burma Expedition, 1938-39 (with [[Charles Suydam Cutting]])<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ward|first=F. Kingdon|date=1941|title=The Vernay-Cutting Expedition, November, 1938, to April, 1939: Report on the Vegetation and Flora of the Hpimaw and Htawgaw Hills, Northern Burma|journal=Brittonia|volume=4|issue=1|pages=1–19|doi=10.2307/2804984|jstor=2804984|s2cid=38972960}}</ref>
 * Vernay Nyasaland Expedition, 1946
+== Eponymy ==
+A large number of species and subspecies described from specimens collected on his expeditions have been named after him including the fish ''[[Hypsibarbus vernayi]]'', the Spottail Barb ''[[Enteromius afrovernayi]]'',  the climbing mouse ''[[Dendromus vernayi]]'', the rodent genus ''[[Vernaya]]''<ref>{{cite journal|title=MAMMALIAN SPECIES: ''Vernaya fulva''.|year=2007|volume=806|pages=1–3|author=Lunde, DP|url=http://www.science.smith.edu/msi/pdf/i1545-1410-806-1-1.pdf|access-date=17 May 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303231620/http://www.science.smith.edu/msi/pdf/i1545-1410-806-1-1.pdf|archive-date=3 March 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> and the Angolan file snake, ''[[Mehelya|Mehelya vernayi]]''.<ref>Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. {{ISBN|978-1-4214-0135-5}}. ("Vernay", p. 274).</ref>{{Portal|Art}}Vernay's business papers are in the Winterthur library through his friend [[Henry Francis du Pont]].
 ==References==
-{{reflist}}
+{{Reflist}}
 ==External links==
 *[https://archive.org/stream/oldenglishglass00vern#page/n5/mode/2up Old English glasses by A. S. Vernay]
 *[https://learninglab.si.edu/resources/view/50198 Vernay and Cutting in Tibet]
-*[https://antiquedealersblog.wordpress.com/tag/arthur-vernay/ History of Vernay's antique business]
+*[https://antiquetrade.leeds.ac.uk/dealerships/35786 History of Vernay's antique business]
+*[https://antiquedealersblog.com/tag/arthur-vernay/ Antique dealer notes]
+{{Authority control}}
 {{DEFAULTSORT:Vernay, Arthur Stannard}}
 [[Category:1877 births]]
 [[Category:1960 deaths]]
-[[Category:People from Weymouth, Dorset]]
 [[Category:English art dealers]]
-[[Category:English interior designers]]
+[[Category:English emigrants to the United States]]
-[[Category:English hunters]]
 [[Category:English explorers]]
+[[Category:English hunters]]
+[[Category:English interior designers]]
+[[Category:Members of the Bombay Natural History Society]]
+[[Category:People from Weymouth, Dorset]]

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