Georges Hoentschel

Description

Georges Hoentschel was born in 1855 in Paris. He worked as an interior decorator, ceramist, and architect. His maternal family was involved in cabinetry, and Georges decided to follow in their footsteps. In 1896, he took over the family business. He built a distinguished career designing the interiors of the homes of the most affluent individuals of the time, including the decoration of the pavilion for the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle (Robinson, 1907). Additionally, he was responsible for sourcing works of art for his clients, which led him to assemble his own collection. Over the course of his life, he amassed numerous pieces, primarily from the medieval period, which he housed in his residence on Boulevard Flandrin. He gifted a significant portion of his collection to his friend John Pierpont Morgan, who then donated it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York). These pieces became the foundation of the museum's department of decorative arts (Kisluk-Grosheide, 2010).

Bibliography

• KISLUK-GROSHEIDE, Daniëlle y MUNGER, Jeffrey (2010): The Wrightsman Galleries for French Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nueva York, pp. 4-7.
• ROBINSON, Edward (1907): "The Hoentschel Collection", vol. 2, nº 6, Bulletin of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 93-99.