Duveen: The Story of the Most Spectacular Art Dealer of All Time by s.n. behrman

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 16,2025

I didn't know what to expect with Duveen and while I was told it would be great to help with sleeping, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Duveen felt more like a shrewd businessman (with a bit of an ego) more than what I imagined an art dealer would be. I found it interesting that Berenson was covered in his book extensively but Duveen isn't even in Berensons. This book delivered and has sparked my interest in the world of art.

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WtBorp

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 16,2025

Great fun!

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MMA

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 16,2025

Very enjoyable, what an era in the art world.

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primordial_noir_

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 16,2025

"Europe had plenty of art and America had plenty of money, and his entire astonishing career was the product of that simple observation."

About as good a read as you could hope for, assuming you like old paintings and can appreciate skilled salesmanship. Talking about the purchasing and selling of great paintings screams for pictures. Fortunately, living in the 21st century, we can just look up images on the internet.

This book was a great find and I enjoy the thought, that it's not a book so easily discovered these days, I would think. How did others discover this book, about the art dealing world between 1880 and 1939? I discovered it while reading yet another book on investing, when the author mentioned reading the book (the author was a hedgefund manager whose name I forgot). In other words, I was reading one of the lesser known investment books and found there mentioned a book about an art dealer from 100 years ago. Which led to me reading it. Glad I did.

The author, Berhman, certainly enjoyed writing this biography of the colorful Joe Duveen. His vocabulary is filled with 5-dollar words and there are a few words, that I would bet not 1/200 native English speakers would confidently claim to know.

Man, there are some gems in here.

[...] "the emperors of oil and steel, of department stores and railroads and newspapers, of stocks and bonds, of utilities and banking houses, had trained themselves to talk slowly, pausing lengthily before each word and especially before each verb, in order to keep themselves from sliding over into the abyss of commitment."

Or how is this: J.P. Morgan wanted to test Duveen's knowledge of Chinese porcelain.
"Morgan wanted Joseph Joel to see five Chinese porcelain beakers he had just bought.
[Morgan:] 'Three of them are authentic and two of them are reproductions. Now, if you’re such an authority, which are which?’ Joseph Joel peered at the beakers, then lifted his walking-stick and smashed two of them. He offered, if he’d broken good ones, to pay for them. Morgan was relieved to find that he could not collect."

Besides Duveen, you'll read about some of the people Duveen did business with, for example Andrew Mellon and a chain store owner Samuel Henry Kress, as well as a more elaborate section on Bernard Berenson. Berenson was an expert on Italian Renaissance art and there is a poignant reflection on his career. A highly educated man, living in Italy, surrounded by books and paintings, who spoke multiple languages. It left an impression.

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Not-an-Ant

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 16,2025

I fell in love with an art student when I was about 16 and she was 17, and the only way I could get anywhere near her was to accompany her to art galleries. As it turned out, I fell out of love with her and in love with art. For the last 60 years, I have been both a passionate collector and admirer. Published in 1952, this book on Lord Duveen – who, as the title suggests, was considered the world’s greatest art dealer and whose client list included John D. Rockefeller Sr. and Willian Randolph Hearst – is one of the classic biographies of the era.

For more of my reviews please go to My Unputdownable Articles

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bnyace

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 16,2025

I picked this up at a used book store because the name rang a bell in connection with Isabella Stewart Gardner. I was fascinated to learn that, in Duveen's word, Mrs. Gardner was a lightweight art collector. This is one of the most fascinating books I've ever picked up - written in the early 50s, this biography tells the story of the man who single-handedly "transformed America's taste in art." Based on the simple observation that Europe has a lot of art, and America has a lot of money, he bought and sold the greatest of the great paintings to big-shots like Mellon, Kress, Frick, Rockefeller, Altman and Widener for phenomenal sums. Those paintings are now the cornerstones of the National Gallery, and many other American museums.

With anecdote after anecdote of Duveen's audacious tactics (such as lending millions of dollars worth of art to a buyer whom, he knew, would insist on buying them even during the Depression), the author provides witty and amusing insights into the fabulous lives of Duveen, Berenson (his own personal art-historian) and great American philanthropists.

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