Joseph Duveen, 1st Baron Duveen

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Isaac Israels : Portrait of Joseph Duveen, National Portrait Gallery, London

Joseph Joel Duveen, 1st Baron Duveen (born October 14, 1869 in Hull , † May 25, 1939 in London ) was a British art dealer .

Life

Joseph Duveen was the eldest of eight sons of the Jewish antiques and art dealer Joseph Joel Duveen (1843-1908), who initially lived in Hull. Joseph Joel Duveen and his younger brother Henry J. Duveen (1855-1918) had been based in London with their company Duveen Brothers since 1879, and in 1886 they opened a branch in New York .

Joseph Duveen attended Brighton College and has been in the family's art business since 1886. Duveen inherited an amazing ability to discover hidden treasure from his father. After the death of his father, he led the company in the riskier but more lucrative market of old master paintings. The key to Duveen's success was his observation. Duveen made his fortune buying paintings from the European nobility and selling them to American millionaires. His middleman in Europe was the Florence-based art connoisseur and art historian Bernard Berenson . There is hardly a collection in America that Duveen has not built.

His customers included the Americans Henry Clay Frick , William Randolph Hearst , Henry E. Huntington , John Pierpoint Morgan , Samuel H. Kress , Andrew Mellon , John D. Rockefeller and the Canadian Frank Porter Wood (1882–1955) . Joseph Duveen became the most important art dealer of his time, especially in the field of old master paintings. This made him wealthy and at the end of his life made a number of donations to collections and museums in England.

So he donated u. a. the Duveen Gallery for the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum . He was also the most generous patron of the Tate Gallery , for whom he financed the construction of five rooms in 1908. Turner's works, which he had bequeathed to the British people, were stored in the National Gallery and the British Museum to date . He commissioned the architect WH Romaine-Walker (1854-1940), who added five rooms in the main corridor of the gallery and two more rooms on the ground floor. Duveen died before the addition was finished, and it was his son, Joseph Duveen, who paid for it to be completed.

In 1899 he married Elsie Solomon, they had a daughter Dorothy Duveen (1903–1985). In 1919 he was knighted as a Knight Bachelor , on February 15, 1927 he was awarded the hereditary title of Baronet , of Millbank in the City of Westminster . On February 3, 1933, he was given the hereditary peerage of Baron Duveen , of Millbank in the City of Westminster, in London , making him a member of the House of Lords . Since he had no sons, his nobility titles expired on his death in 1939. Lord Duveen was buried in the Willesden United Synagogue Cemetery in London.

literature

  • James Henry Duveen: The rise of the House of Duveen . Longmans Green, London 1957.
  • Samuel N. Behrman : Duveen and the Millionaires. On the sociology of the art trade in America . Rowohlt, Hamburg 1960.
  • Colin Simpson: The partnership. The secret association of Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen . Bodley Head, London 1987. ISBN 0-370-30585-X
  • Meryle Secrest : Duveen. A Life in Art . Knopf, New York 2004. ISBN 0-375-41042-2

Web links

Commons : Joseph Duveen, 1st Baron Duveen  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Scientific articles on the Duveen / Berenson relationship, as of 2019 , accessed June 14, 2019
  2. ↑ The Turner Convenient , accessed June 24, 2019
  3. ^ Emil Fuchs: Sir Joseph Duveen , Tate, accessed June 24, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Duveen, Joseph, 1st Baron Duveen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Duveen, Joseph Joel, 1st Baron Duveen (full name); Duveen, Sir Joseph; Duveen, Sir Joseph, 1st Baronet
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British art dealer
DATE OF BIRTH October 14, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Hull
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 1939
Place of death London