Duveen

Description

The renowned art dealer Joseph Duveen was born in 1843 in Meppel (the Netherlands). The origins of the business can be traced to his grandmother Eva’s passion for collecting Delft ceramics. Her sons, Joseph and Henry Noel, grew up in this environment and saw the opportunity to enter the antiquities market. Joseph, Duveen’s father, began the business in England, while his brother Henry expanded into the United States. Together, they established the firm Duveen Bros. in 1879 (Merino de Cáceres and Martínez Ruiz, 2012) and engaged in the sale of ceramics and furniture, among other items (Vignon, 2019).

Duveen followed his family’s example but expanded the business to include the trade of paintings and sculptures. He subsequently opened an art gallery in Place Vendôme, Paris. Before long, the business grew, and he used his locations in Paris and London as sites to acquire artworks, while New York became the centre for their sale (Colorado Castellary, 1991). Duveen understood that art resided in the Old World, while wealth was concentrated in the United States. Although the artworks he acquired in Europe were of high quality, what truly distinguished Duveen was his skill as a salesman and the personal attention he offered to his clients (Behrman, 1952; Marès, 2000). Through his hands passed a wide range of European artworks, which enhanced both private collections and the holdings of American museums.

Bibliography

• BEHRMAN, Samuel Nathaniel (1952): Duveen. The intimate portrait of a fabulous art dealer, Random House, Nueva York.
• COLORADO CASTELLARY, Arturo (1991): "Sir Joseph Duveen, el rey Midas de los anticuarios", nº 77, Galería Antiquaria: Arte Contemporáneo, Antigüedades y Coleccionismo, pp. 52-59.
• MARÈS DEULOVOL, Frederic (2000): El mundo fascinante del coleccionismo y de las antigüedades. memorias de la vida de un coleccionista, Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, Barcelona, pp. 52-53.
• MERINO DE CÁCERES, José Miguel y MARTÍNEZ RUIZ, María José (2012): La destrucción del patrimonio artístico español. W. R. Hearst “el gran acaparador", Cátedra, Madrid, pp. 229-230.
• VIGNON, Charlotte (2019): Duveen Brothers and the Market for Decorative Arts, 1880-1940, The Frick Collection in association with D. Giles Ltd., Nueva York, pp. 172-179.