The Rise Of The House Of Duveen

This book provides an exciting portrayal of the history of the Duveen family in the art business up to 1939.

“THOUGH MANY REASONS have contributed to impel me to write this hook, the chief one is the memory of my uncle Joel Joseph Duveen. On the death of my father at the untimely age of twenty-nine, when I was four years old, my uncle was appointed my guardian by the Dutch court. He took a constant interest in me as I grew up; and, seeing how much I admired his energy and brilliance, he loved to tell me his interesting experiences. I was an eager listener and made notes of all he told me. He frequently invited me to accompany him on long journeys, and I spent many holidays with him on the Continent; the most pleasurable and exciting parts of these travels with him were the stories of his early life and the reminiscences of his business career.

“A friend […] sent me in 1954 a fascinating book, Duveen, by S. N. Behrman, a gifted American author, which I read with the greatest interest. In it he has produced a brilliant picture of Lord Duveen’s character and methods, and he is to be congratulated on his successful portrait. But this exciting book is chiefly concerned with the period of Lord Duveen; and I am grateful to its author for inspiring me to take up my pen again and place on record the greatness of the older generation who, by more brilliant but less grandiose methods, created the firm Lord Duveen raised to a height that may never again be equalled.

“I therefore began […] to set down my memories of a line of great and intrepid connoisseurs in art. In our careers the art treasures in which we dealt and the great figures who formed our clientele are more interesting than we are ourselves. For this reason I have tried to picture the characters of my family by their adventurous dealings rather than by long biographical sketches; the incidents related are authentic in all details except names, some of which have been disguised for obvious reasons.”