Biographical/Historical Note
The Duveen Brothers was a firm of influential art dealers active from the late nineteenth
to the mid-twentieth centuries with offices in London, Paris, and New York. Under the
guidance of Joseph Duveen (1869-1939), and assisted by art experts, most notably Bernard
Berenson (1865-1959), Duveen Brothers played a prominent role in the transfer of works of
art from Europe to the United States. The firm helped form important private collections
that later became the nuclei of museums such as the National Gallery of Art, the Huntington
Art Collections, and the Frick Collection.
Joel Joseph (1843-1908) and Henry Duveen (1854-1919), the founders of Duveen Brothers were
originally from Meppel, Holland. In 1866, Joel Joseph moved to England, first to the city of
Hull and then to London, where he began importing delftware, porcelain and other objets
d'art from Holland. In 1877, Henry moved to Boston and then New York, where he would become
associated with the affluent American collectors J. P. Morgan, Benjamin Altman, Collis P.
Huntington, P. A. B. Widener and George J. Gould. Joseph Duveen, the eldest son of Joseph
Joel and the principal personage behind the firm's peak from 1907 to 1939 joined the
business under his father's mentorship in the London branch in 1887. In 1905-1908, Sir
(later Lord) Joseph Duveen made the decisive purchases in Paris of the Rodolfe Kann and
Maurice Kann collections and in Berlin of the Hainauer collection.
The firm's operation involved a network of runners, scholars, librarians, writers, and
photographers. Its access to the vast financial resources of its clientele of international
bankers provided it with the capital necessary to make major purchases. The firm achieved
major sales to collectors, such as Samuel Kress, Andrew Mellon, Henry Clay Frick, Joseph E.
Widener, Mr. and Mrs. Henry E. Huntington and Philip Lehman.
In 1939, after Lord Duveen's death, his nephew, Armand Lowengard and Edward Fowles assumed
leadership of the firms in Paris, New York and London. When Lowengard passed away in 1943,
Fowles took over the presidency of Duveen Brothers until 1964, when he sold the firm to
Norton Simon with most of its remaining stock.
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