- Paperback: 540 pages
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press; New edition edition (17 Feb 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0226744159
- ISBN-13: 978-0226744155
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.9 x 3.9 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 968,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"By far the best account of Joseph Duveen's life in a biography that is rich in detail, scrupulously researched, and sympathetically written. [Secrest's] inquiries into early-twentieth-century collecting whet our appetite for a more general history of the art market in the first half of the twentieth century." - John Brewer, New York Review of Books "Secrest paints an engrossing picture of the art-dealing world, fraught with intrigues, betrayals and lawsuits, to say nothing of fakes, forgeries, and misattributions.... An accomplished biography." - Publishers Weekly"
Product Description
Anyone who has admired Gainsborough's "Blue Boy" of the Huntington Collection in California, or Rembrandt's Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York owes much of his or her pleasure to the art dealer Joseph Duveen (1869-1939). Regarded as the most influential - or, in some circles, notorious - dealer of the twentieth century, Duveen established himself selling the European masterpieces of Titian, Botticelli, Giotto, and Vermeer to newly and lavishly wealthy American businessmen - J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Mellon, to name just a few. It is no exaggeration to say that Duveen was the driving force behind every important private art collection in the United States. The first major biography of Duveen in more than fifty years and the first to make use of his enormous archive - only recently opened to the public - Meryle Secrest's "Duveen" traces the rapid ascent of the tirelessly enterprising dealer, from his humble beginnings running his father's business to knighthood and eventually a peerage. The eldest of eight sons of Jewish-Dutch immigrants, Duveen inherited an uncanny ability to spot a hidden treasure from his father, proprietor of a prosperous antiques business. After his father's death, Duveen moved the company into the riskier but lucrative market of paintings and quickly became one of the world's leading art dealers. The key to Duveen's success was his simple observation that while Europe had the art, America had the money; Duveen made his fortune by buying art from declining European aristocrats and selling it to the "squillionaires" in the United States.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For someone interested in art, and more particulary in paintings, this is a very interesting book. Perhaps too many dates, too many names all mixed up in the course of some 40 or 50 years. However, i think it is the best the author could have done. Full of anecdotes, reading this book is also a very entertaining way of learning about the world of art dealers, auction firms and the greatest collectors of all time.
Very recommendable
Very recommendable
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Europe had the Art, America had the Money
30 Sep 2004
Format:Hardcover
The sub-title of this book, 'A Life in Art' is absolutely true, but almost misleading. Quite a number of books with something like that in their name deal with the life of an artist. This one, instead, deals with the life of Joseph Duveen, art dealer.
Joseph Duveen lived at a time when the established order was changing. He made an early observation that while Europe had the art, America had the money. As head of Duveen Brothers (London, Paris, New York) he set up an organization finding hundreds of the Old Masters in Europe and selling them to American collecters. The list of his customers reads like a Who's Who of the American rich: Mellon, Frick, J. P. Morgan, Huntington, Kress, Hearst and many, many more.
The book is largely based on the Duveen Archive. Held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the archive was locked away and hidden. Only recently has the archive been transferred to the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities in Los Angeles. There a decision was made to make the archive available on microfilm for study. The archive consists of the documentation that accompanied the business: letters, cables, photo albums, ledgers, sales books, stock books, etc. These kinds of documents are the life blood of a business and in this case enable the author to have unparalleled insight to how the business operated. This is combined with a knac for story telling that makes the dead business documents come alive.
Joseph Duveen lived at a time when the established order was changing. He made an early observation that while Europe had the art, America had the money. As head of Duveen Brothers (London, Paris, New York) he set up an organization finding hundreds of the Old Masters in Europe and selling them to American collecters. The list of his customers reads like a Who's Who of the American rich: Mellon, Frick, J. P. Morgan, Huntington, Kress, Hearst and many, many more.
The book is largely based on the Duveen Archive. Held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the archive was locked away and hidden. Only recently has the archive been transferred to the Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities in Los Angeles. There a decision was made to make the archive available on microfilm for study. The archive consists of the documentation that accompanied the business: letters, cables, photo albums, ledgers, sales books, stock books, etc. These kinds of documents are the life blood of a business and in this case enable the author to have unparalleled insight to how the business operated. This is combined with a knac for story telling that makes the dead business documents come alive.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
A fascinating character
10 April 2007
Format:Paperback
This is the story of Joseph Duveen, the man responsible for building the most famous private collections (later museums) in the U.S. As a dealer, he was the first to fully understand that art travels where money lives, which is to say from Europe to America.
There are many lively anecdotes recalling his relationship with Morgan, Mellon, Altman, Widener and, most of all, the diabolical Berenson (thanks to new material that surfaced recently, the confidential contract between the expert and the dealer is very well described in the book). It is true that this book is not entirely satisfactory because it is somewhat confuse and too anecdotical, but the main character is so fascinating that it still makes for good reading.
There are many lively anecdotes recalling his relationship with Morgan, Mellon, Altman, Widener and, most of all, the diabolical Berenson (thanks to new material that surfaced recently, the confidential contract between the expert and the dealer is very well described in the book). It is true that this book is not entirely satisfactory because it is somewhat confuse and too anecdotical, but the main character is so fascinating that it still makes for good reading.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
A Great Effort Sadly Lacking
1 Mar 2005
Format:Hardcover
I held great hopes for this book--Duveen has long been of interest to me because of the pivotal role he played in the creation of some of the greatest art collections in this country. However, Secrest in her drive to capture the "essence" of the man has so mangled the story of his life and career that reading her work is more chore than delight. To say the book is disorganized is to deal in serious understatement. But worse than that are the inaccuracies, especially when she writes about Duveen's customers. Just for starters, apparently she didn't recognize the need to differentiate between John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and his father (or maybe she didn't know there has been more than one JDR!). You won't learn much from this tome that you don't know to begin, and getting through it will be a struggle.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
