Peter Widener
Peter Arrell Brown Widener (born November 13, 1834 , † November 6, 1915 in Elkins Park , Pennsylvania ) was an American transport company and art collector .
Life
Widner was an investor in tram systems very successful and was a founding member of Philadelphia Traction Company in Philadelphia. Together with his business partner William Lukens Elkins , he invested in the expansion of tram systems in other US cities such as Chicago. With his corporate profits, he became a founding member of US Steel and the American Tobacco Company, and took a stake in Standard Oil .
As an art collector, he was particularly interested in acquiring European paintings from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. He bought the painting Small Cowper Madonna by Raffael in 1913 from the seller Joseph Duveen and in 1911 he bought the painting The Mill of Rembrandt from the British Lord Lansdowne . In those years, both paintings were among the most expensive paintings ever in the world.
Widener was married to Hannah Josephine Dunton (1836-1896), had three children and lived with his family at Lynnewood Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His son George Dunton Widener and grandson Harry Elkins Widener died in 1912 in the sinking of the RMS Titanic . In 1939, his son Joseph Widener donated the paintings his father had bought to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC
Others
Among other things, Widener had commissioned the construction of the US ship USS Vixen (PY-4) . In 1896, the ship was launched at the Crescent Shipyard in Elizabethport, New Jersey. In the run-up to the impending Spanish-American conflict, the US Navy took over the ship on April 9, 1898.
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Widener, Peter |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Widener, Peter Arrell Brown |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American entrepreneur and art collector |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 13, 1834 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 6, 1915 |
| Place of death | Elkins Park , Pennsylvania , United States |