Georges Blumenthal and Florence Meyer Blumenthal

New York (United States)

George Blumenthal, 1926.

Library of Congress, Washington. Dominio Público.
Photography: Bain News Service, New York.

Portrait of Florence Meyer Blumenthal by Giovanni Boldini, 1896. Musée d'Orsay

© Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt

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Description

George Blumenthal (1858-1941) was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He trained as a banker and moved to the United States to work for the company Speyer & Co. Later, he became a partner at the Lazard Frères branch and eventually rose to the position of head of the banking institution. However, his true passion lay in the world of art. Throughout his life, he donated large sums of money to charitable and artistic causes, becoming one of the most prominent philanthropists in the United States. He was an avid art collector, as evidenced by the artworks that adorned his residences. Towards the end of his life, he bequeathed his collection and part of his residences to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Marín Medina, 1988).

Together with his first wife, Florence Meyer Blumenthal (1875-1930), an important American philanthropist, he formed a select art collection that would eventually become one of the most important legacies of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. They lived between France and the USA and had several residences where they housed their rich art collection, such as their two mansions in New York, one in Paris, or the château in Grasse, near Cannes. The most iconic of these was Blumenthal's Manhattan mansion, 50 East 70th Street, on the southwest corner of Park Avenue, which became a great repository of art treasures, many of them from Spain, such as the patio de Vélez Blanco (Almería), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His art collection included other notable works of art from Spain, such as two tapestries from the collection of the Duke of Lerma, woven in Brussels by Willem de Pannemaker, ca. 1550:The Loves of Mercury and Herse: The Bridal Chamber of Herse and Aglaurus turned to stone by Mercury, tapestries that the antiquarian Jacques Seligmann placed in his hands. There is also and altarpiece dedicated to the Life of the Virgin by the late 15th century Aragonese master of Morata, or and altarpiece of the Virgin and Child, the Pietà and the saintsby a Castilian master from the late 15th century, an altarpiece that the Madrid-based antiquarian Juan Lafora sold to Seligmann, who in turn sold it to the Blumenthal family; both altarpieces are now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, of which George Blumenthal was a patron, benefactor, and president from 1934 until his death in 1941.