Collectors

Just as we are interested in works commissioned for great buildings or their owners, we are also interested in their subsequent ownership by distinguished collectors.  For example, in Europe a Rothschild provenance is often an indicator of great quality – we have a number of works from Rothschild collections. We also have works owned by Sir Julius Wehrner and Sir Frederick Richmond among others.

From American collections we have works owned by Henry Ford, the Rockefeller McCormick family, J Hampden Robb, J Pierpont Morgan, Randolph Hearst, J Paul Getty and, from possibly the most discriminating tapestry collector of all, Clarence Mackay who owned both a Duccio and a Vermeer.

These collectors were frequently but not exclusively magnates or financiers.  However in many cases they are remembered more for their collections than their other achievements.  Especially in North America these collections formed, through a combination of discerning advice and connoisseurship, the foundation of many of the permanent museum collections we know today.

Of nineteenth and twentieth century collections of tapestries, carpets and textile art the following collectors have been especially significant in managing to acquire masterpieces in this field:

The Aga Khan, Benjamin Altman, Werner Abegg, Jules Bache, James F Ballard, George Blumenthal, Bruschettini, Sir William Burrell, Alfred Cassirer, Marino D’Alloglio, Ann Dodge, Doris Duke, Henry Dupont, Charles M Ffoulke, Figdor, Henry C Frick, John Paul Getty, Calouste Gulbenkian, Oscar Hainauer, J Hampton-Robb, Randolph Hearst, George Hewitt Myers, Collis P Huntingdon, Samuel H Kress, Robert Lehman, Lord Leverhulme, Clarence Mackay, Henry G Marquand, John D McIlhenny, Joseph V McMullan, J Pierpont Morgan, Stavros Niarchos, Norton Simon, Beatrice Ortiz Patino, Bertha and Potter Palmer, Sir Frederick Richmond, John D Rockefeller, Jr, Friedrich Spitzer, Baron Thyssen, Judge Irwin Untemeyer, G W Vanderbilt II, Henry Walters, Sir Julius Wernher, Joseph E Widener, P A B Widener, C F Williams, Jayne Wrightsman, Charles Yerkes.