The dealer king

Art in America, June-July, 2005 by Peter Dailey

It is highly questionable whether the feeding frenzy Duveen induced among his millionaire clients, or the distortion of prices that resulted, enhanced the quality of the collections being formed. Gerard Reitlinger notes in his important study The Economics of Taste (1963) that the Frick-Huntington rivalry "lifted the price of Gainsborough into what may be called the Raphael class." During his heyday, Duveen succeeded in selling works by Lawrence, Reynolds and Romney for $350,000 to $500,000. Hoppner's Tambourine Girl, which E.T. Stotesbury purchased from Duveen in 1914 for $360,000, was sold in 1944 for $12,500. By contrast, Reitlinger's survey indicates that during the mid-'20s first-class works by Caravaggio, the Carracci, Poussin, Claude, Ingres, Delacroix, Watteau, Goya, Courbet, van Gogh and Constable regularly changed hands for $5,000 to $10,000. All of these artists were known quantities, but they simply didn't fare as well in the overheated market that Duveen had done so much to create as did second- or even third-rate painters of the Italian cinquecento.

Duveen's career neatly illustrates the influence of the market on the way particular artists arrive at canonical status during any given period. The episode of the Allendale Adoration of the Shepherds, a work that Berenson regarded as "one of the most fascinating Giorgionesque pictures ever painted," which left him "in raptures over its enchantment and beauty," is similarly instructive. Connoisseurship--one of the necessary intellectual foundations of any art-historical study--had been transformed into a handmaiden of the market, an essential tool in the commodification of works of art. This is ironic, because the status today of attributions Berenson made for Duveen is proof enough that connoisseurship has never been an exact science. Indeed, the survival rate of Berenson's identifications is probably typical. He certified for Duveen 20 "Giovanni Bellinis" whose presence can be accounted for today; half are now considered autograph works, the rest being "style of," "follower of" or assigned to someone else. Of the 17 "Titians," four are regarded as the work of the master. American museums are fortunate that there were other collectors like H.O. Havemeyer, Albert Barnes and Chester Dale, who ignored the old-masters hysteria altogether and went their independent ways.

Did Duveen indeed shape the market or was he merely its creature? Unfortunately, a biography of Duveen is probably the last place to look for an answer. The dealer was one of those who consider the unexamined life perfectly well worth living. Did Duveen have an "inner life"? He must have, and one shares Secrest's exasperation over not being more successful in uncovering it. A teetotaler, he had no hobbies or reckless enthusiasms, and was basically all business. He loved his daughter, behaved as a generous friend and a notable philanthropist, and displayed great stoicism in the face of death. Of his many charitable benefactions Kenneth Clark has written: "His generosity may have paid, but it was part of his whole expansive personality. How many successful English art dealers have presented pictures or whole galleries to the nation? Scarcely one. The reason is they have made their fortunes by prudence, whereas Duveen made his by reckless ebullience." (4)