Duveen

Abstract

A startling number of masterpieces now in American museums are there because of the shrewdness of one man, Joseph Duveen, art dealer to John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon, Henry Clay Frick, and William Randolph Hearst. In a series of articles originally published in The New Yorker, playwright S.N. Behrman evokes the larger-than-life Duveen and reveals the wheeling and dealing, subterfuge, and spirited drama behind the sale of nearly--but not quite--priceless Rembrandts, Vermeers, Turners, and Bellinis.

Contents

Itinerary -- Beginning in Delft -- Brisk market in immortality -- B.B. -- The Blue Boy and two Lavinias -- Silent men.