Active in London, Paris, and New York, Duveen Brothers was the most prominent art and antique dealer from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. The firm’s success came from buying furniture, tapestries, porcelain, and other objets d’art and selling it at high prices to wealthy Americans, including Henry Clay Frick, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Arabella Huntington, and John Pierpont Morgan. Making extensive use of Duveen Brothers records at the Getty Research Institute, as well as letters and invoices in the archives of the firm’s clients, Vignon provides a rich study of this influential firm in the history of collecting.
Acknowledgments by Charlotte VignonPreface
Commercial Strategies, Tricks, and Corruption
1. Conquering London, New York and Paris
2. Art dealers and interior decorators
3. Issues of restoration, authenticity and expertise
4. The illegal trade of Duveen Brothers
Trade in objets d'art by Duveen Brothers
5. Chinese porcelain dealers
6. 18th-century French furniture and art dealers
7. Furniture Merchants and Works of Art from the Middle Ages and the RenaissanceConclusion
Essay by KugelBiographiesBibliographyPhoto CreditsIndex
