Born: 1843 Meppel, Netherlands
Died: 1908 Hyeres, France
Year of Migration to the UK: 1865
Other name/s: Baron Joseph Joel Duveen, Joseph Joel Duveen, Sir Joseph Duveen
Biography
Art dealer Joseph Joel Duveen was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in Meppel, the Netherlands on 8 May 1843. In 1865 he moved to England, settling in the port city of Hull. Despite speaking little English, he quickly established himself in the import-export market. In 1868, he became an antiques dealer, selling Dutch Delftware to wealthy Victorian collectors. Owing to his excellent knowledge of the then fashionable Nankin porcelain, which had been brought to Holland by the early Dutch traders with China, he was able to purchase it in large quantities which he shipped to Hull, before finding a ready market for it in London. In 1869 he married Rosetta Barnett by whom he had a family of ten sons and four daughters.
After entering in partnership with his younger brother Henry, he quickly secured the chief American trade in Oriental porcelain, opening a branch house at Fifth Avenue, New York in 1877. The Duveens formed many fine art collections in America, including that of prominent collector James Garland, which they bought back en bloc in March 1902 and sold immediately to Pierpont Morgan; they also contributed to the formation of the Taft, Widener, Gould, Altmann art collections. In 1879 the brothers opened a fine art gallery next to the Pantheon in Oxford Street, London, playing a crucial role in London’s decorative arts trade, and extending their interests in many areas, including antique tapestries, of which they became the largest purchasers. When Robinson and Fisher vacated their auction rooms at 21 Old Bond Street, the brothers secured these additional premises. In the spring of 1894, they built further spacious art galleries, also opening another gallery in Paris. Duveen was in charge of purchases in Europe, mainly sourcing from Britain, Holland, and France, while his brother was in charge of sales in New York. Over their decades-long career, they displayed their items in elegant galleries, purchased prestigious European collections abroad, bought antiques at the top of the market at auction, and produced lavish. Their antiques, sculptures, objets d’art and paintings decorated fashionable homes, including that of J.P. Morgan in London and Eleanor Elkins Widener’s cottage in Newport.
Duveen became a generous public benefactor, contributing to the public purchase of Velasquez Rokeby Venus for the National Gallery in 1906, in which year he also presented John Singer Sargent's whole-length portrait of Miss Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth to the Tate Gallery. In May 1908 he financed the addition of five further rooms, subsequently known as The Turner Wing, where his portrait by painter Emil Fuchs (1866-1929) is displayed. He is also associated with the public art gallery in Hull, where he began his career, and his son later presented Edward Stott's The Good Samaritan to the gallery in commemoration of this connection. In his later years, after suffering from pneumonia, Duveen escaped the cold in England every autumn, not returning until the following spring. By 1900, due to his long absences and that of his brother Henry, who was living in New York, the family business was run by his son. Joseph Duveen was knighted on 26 June 1908; he died at Hyeres, France in 1908, and was buried in the Jewish cemetery, Willesden, London. In 2019 a talk devoted to the Duveens’ leading role in the decorative art market and collection was held at TEFAF Maastricht. The Duveen Brothers records are part of the Getty Research Institute Special Collections.
Related books
- Charlotte Vignon, Duveen Brothers and the Market for Decorative Arts, 1880-1940 (New York: The Frick Collection, 2019)
- William Roberts, 'Duveen, Sir Joseph Joel', in H C G Matthew and Brian Harrison eds., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004)
- Edward Fowles, Memoirs of Duveen Brothers (London: Times Books, 1976)
- James Henry Duveen, The Rise of the House of Duveen (London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1957)
- James Henry Duveen, Secrets of an Art Dealer (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1938)
- James Henry Duveen, Collection and Recollections: a Century and a Half of Art Deals (London: Jarrolds, 1935)
- ‘Sir Joseph Duveen's Will: Interesting Bequests’, 6 December 1908, p. 11
Related organisations
- British Museum (benefactor)
- Duveen Brothers Ltd. (co-founder) (co-founder)
- National Gallery (benefactor) (benefactor)
- Tate Gallery (benefactor) (benefactor)
