Setting the Stage in the Gilded Age

The art dealership known as Duveen Brothers gained international fame for selling European paintings, antique furnishings, and other objets d’art to American collectors for record prices.

The firm was founded by Joel Joseph Duveen and Henry Joseph Duveen in the late 1860s, but experienced its greatest success during Joseph Duveen’s tenure as president, 1909 to 1939.

Troubled economic conditions in Europe at this time, coupled with the vast disposable income of the millionaire class in the United States, created the ideal market condition for the transference of European art treasures, particularly paintings, to the mansions of newly rich Americans.

Charlotte Vignon, director of the French National Museum of Ceramics in Sèvres, dedicated her doctoral dissertation to Duveen Brothers and specializes in the field of art dealership. She will delve into the firm’s rise to success on May 5, when she discusses her book Duveen Brothers and the Market for Decorative Arts, 1880–1940.

I recently sat down with Vignon to talk about Duveen Brothers and the timeliness of the HBO series The Gilded Age.

Sally McKay: The show The Gilded Age deals with some conflicts between families of “old” New York versus “new” New York, or the newly monied, and the rise of these large mansions as they move up Fifth Avenue in the 1880s. Families wanted to make sure they had the right house, the right artwork, the right tapestries, glasses, furniture, and so on. Can you tell us a little about that?

Charlotte Vignon: Very early in the 1880s, it’s a very interesting time—because it’s a transitioning time. Professional advisors or architects are beginning to become interior decorators. The Duveen brothers, at that point, had just arrived in New York. They came from Holland and London. They arrived in New York because they wanted their business to develop in this new country. And it was a market to conquer.

At the beginning, a few important Americans start to trust the Duveens—their taste, the objects they have for sale. They come with a huge seal of approval, if I can say, because they are European. Americans are looking towards European aristocracy and history for taste.

The Duveen brothers could bring materials, experience, and knowledge into the picture. I think that the first clients in the 1880s, to compare it with the time depicted in The Gilded Age, are the Huntingtons. Arabella Huntington, who you might know from visits to the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, was a strong woman with great taste, but she was also young.

The other person early on was J. P. Morgan. Like Arabella, here was someone with a lot of taste and knowledge who had a huge relationship with London, but who still needed dealers, tastemakers, architects, and interior decorators to organize, advise, and put this big enterprise together. Furnishing a mansion is a lot like creating a stage set.

SM: They were taking on the European and Parisian model of staging rooms, with installations of entire rooms—paneling, tapestries, furniture, silverware, porcelain?

CV: They were doing period rooms for private estates, and yes, you must deal with every single detail. That takes a lot of work, dealing with everything that you don’t want to deal with, and making sure everything is in harmony. It’s a job, and you need real hands-on expertise and experience to be successful at it. All of these Americans were definitely using Duveen Brothers and others to help them.

It was the staging of their life, if you want. By 1910, Sir Joseph Duveen would certainly be advising his clients on how to dress, where they should go on vacation, what they should serve for dinner, and so on.

Sir Joseph Duveen definitely did that for his clients. In the 1880s these dealers were transitioning into becoming gentlemen themselves.

SM: There were a couple of mentions in the show about how to set a table. The old New York families were going with an English model.

CV: This is still a very important topic for the French people, how to put together a table! You have your protocol with the four glasses—are they aligned? Where do you place the champagne glass? I’m sure these discussions were happening in New York at the time.

SM: Another thing that’s interesting about The Gilded Age, and the archives that we have at Getty, is that Duveen Brothers would pay servants at houses to get information about a collection, or how people were feeling. “Oh, is he under the weather? Don’t negotiate now.” That kind of thing.

CV: Yes! It was important to know that such and such person wanted to buy such and such painting or another work of art, that such and such society maven wanted to change her bedroom because she was tired of it. And that such and such person was going to get divorced. So those collections may be for sale. They obtained the information from servants, friends, being there themselves, any source they could find.

SM: I think it’s wonderful that we have so many dealer records at the Getty Research Institute that intersect with the Duveen Brothers archive, including the Carlhian records, French & Company, and of course the Knoedler gallery. Knoedler was also mentioned in The Gilded Age.

CV: It was a very small world. Now, everybody can try to become an expert by looking at sales and prices of art online. But at that time, the world was really in the hands of very few players. Most of the Duveens’ clients were new money and needed guidance on how things needed to be done, down to what wine glasses to use on the dinner table. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sir Joseph Duveen came in 15 minutes before a dinner just to style the table.

SM: There are thousands of stories like that, all through the Getty Research Institute’s archives.

CV: All of these dealers, decorators, and architects at the turn of the last century, their stories are so rich, visual, and fascinating.