Berenson and Duveen: A Timeline

1864

 Mary Smith born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1865 (JUNE 26)

Bernard Berenson born Bernard Valvrojensk in Burtimonys (in what
is now Lithuania).

1869 (OCT 14)

Joseph Duveen born in Hull, England.

1886

Joseph Duveen begins his career working for his father’s successful import business, the Duveen Brothers. He would take over the business with his father’s death in 1909, expanding it to mammoth dimensions, presiding over galleries in London, Paris, and New York and specializing in the acquisition and sale of the works of ‘Old Masters.’

Bernard Berenson at I Tatti.

1887

Bernard Berenson graduates from Harvard University and is immediately commissioned by Isabel Stewart Gardner, a well-known Boston socialite, to buy art for her in Europe. Recognizing his talents early in their acquaintance, she sends him on a series of “art seeing” trips; Berenson would spend nearly $3 million for her during the ten years of his commission. Many of those purchases would become the focus of her “Fenway Court” collection in Boston.

1900

Bernard Berenson and Mary Smith marry in a small chapel on the estate of Villa I Tatti.

1912

Joseph Duveen and Bernard Berenson begin a professional relationship. Duveen would often consult with Berenson who was regarded as the pre-eminent authority on Renaissance art and a pioneer of art attribution, specifically of works by the Old Masters. Berenson’s verdict of authenticity not only increased a painting’s value, but was often relied upon heavily by Duveen to complete sales of works to prominent collectors who lacked knowledge of the field.

1914

Duveen has established a virtual monopoly of Old Masters on both sides of the Atlantic. His principal headquarters in New York City, Duveen is in no small
part responsible for the collections of such American luminaries as Henry Clay Frick, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Mellon. Largely as a result of Duveen’s efforts, the great Italian, Dutch, French, and English masters would come to be widely represented in American museums.

1920

Joseph Duveen is sued for $500,000 over comments questioning the authenticityof a version of the Da Vinci painting La belle Ferronière. The owner, Mrs Andrée Lardoux Hahn, sued for defamation of property in a notorious court case which involved many of the major connoisseurs of the day (including Berenson) inspecting the two paintings side by side at the Louvre; the case was eventually heard in New York before a jury selected for not knowing anything of Leonardo or Morellian connoisseurship. During this trial, it was also revealed that Berenson, as well as other experts who had testified in Paris, such as Roger Fry and Sir Charles Holmes, had previously provided paid expertises to Duveen. While Duveen, after a split verdict, ended up settling out of court with Hahn, the whole story would damage Berenson’s reputation.

1937

Duveen and Berenson end their relationship in a dispute over a painting: specifically the Allendale Nativity (aka The Adoration of the Shepherds now at the National Gallery in Washington), intended for the collection of Samuel H. Kress. Duveen was selling it as a Giorgione, but Berenson believed it to be an early Titian.

1939 (MAY 25)

Joseph Duveen dies in London at age 69.

1945

Mary Berenson dies in Florence, (Villa I Tatti) Italy at age 81.

1959 (OCT 6)

Bernard Berenson dies in Settignano, Italy, at age 94.