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Joseph Duveen

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2024-02-20
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2024-02-20
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  1. “We'll go into how and like who are the people that he paid, but this is the reason why, so he would, the way that most people are getting back and forth between Europe and America at this point, right? It's on these transatlantic ships. So he becomes friends with all the deck hands on the ships. And he pays them a lot of money. In many cases, hundreds of dollars, like he'll tip them, you know, hundreds of dollars. And it's way more than they make. And in return, they make sure because they're setting up and they're deciding where everybody's going to sit on the deck. And what they do, because Devine has built relationships with them, finds out they have valuable information, pays them for that information, pays them for their service in an excessive amount, more so than anybody else is paying them, right? In return, he gets seated and set up next to a bunch of American millionaires that are going, you know, back and forth through Europe. This is another example of what I meant.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Every time. And the greatest way to condense and clarify that idea, in my opinion, is the line monopoly was his method. Monopoly was his method. And I think all these ideas work together to help him build his monopoly. The fact that he was focused on it, he was only interested in his business. There's this line about the amount of detail that he paid attention to. And I think there's a great story that illustrates monopoly was this method. Duvine displayed that scrupulous attention to detail that has distinguished the careers of other celebrated generals. So obviously something you and I have talked about multiple times with the most recent on the two weeks ago on the episode of Napoleon's strategies and maxims. And so an example of that, it goes back to this information network, right? He knew every, he built relationships and paid people to give him information. And the reason, and I'm going to actually explain, I'm going to explain the story first.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Back to this idea of how important it was this information network that he built up slowly over time, right? Compounds and value becomes one of his greatest assets later in his life, how valuable it is, is that Henry Clay Frick is one of his biggest clients, right? And one of the richest people on the planet now. And yet Duvine is the expert in this field. So he hears about all the great assets before anybody else does. And so he's having like a launch and a conversation with Henry Clay Frick. And Frick brings up. He's like, man, I lost that painting. I was on the trail of a very great painting. It's this thing called St. James Park or something like that. And Frick's response, or Duvine's response to Frick was excellent. He goes, oh, Mr. Frick, I bought that painting. When you want a great painting, you must come to me because you know I get the first chance at all of them. Remember, he repeats this over and over again. You can only get the best through me. Ignore these competitors. Come straight to me. You will get the best.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “They're focused. Listen to this line that comes a couple pages later. He was interested in practically nothing except his business. If you think about the layers in which this guy goes, it's impossible to arrive at the conclusions and come up with the ideas that Duvine had, right? I'm a huge believer that it is not what you do, but it is how you do it. There is a ton of art dealers that don't make any money, and there's a handful, one or two or three that became billionaires. It's not what you do, it's how you do it. And this idea of crazy focus and just thinking about your business longer and harder than anybody else does, you're going to get so deep down that curve that you're going to come up with ideas that other people in your same field that remain permanently superficial will never have. Certain men are endowed with the faculty of concentrating on their own affairs to the exclusion of what's going on elsewhere. Duvine was that kind of man.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Our collectors in America's time 95 of the 115 paintings in his collection came from Duvine. That is, he aimed for monopoly and he hit his target. Another fascinating thing that I've already mentioned, but it's very obvious when you read about and you start studying Joseph Duvene, it's like, okay, this guy is super clever. And what makes him even more clever, right? So it talks about that. He enjoyed having the stupid side of his character emphasized in public dinner parties. He'd bring up his mistakes. Most people, you know, they're kind of embarrassed by their failures, embarrassed by their mistakes. They would like kite it. They're being ashamed of it. He wouldn't hide his mistakes. He'd bring them up himself. And this is the line why. It says he enjoyed having the stupid side of his character emphasize. It constituted a disguise for his cleverness, as how you know somebody's even more clever. The fact that they understand that it's clever to conceal your cleverness and another thing that clever founders do is”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Multiple times it talks about that Duvine was aiming for monopoly on purpose. There's a great line where it says monopoly by Peter Thiel and zero to one, where he says monopoly businesses capture more value than millions of undifferentiated competitors. This is what it sounds like if you have a monopoly. There had never before been anyone like Duvine. The exalted middleman, and he practically monopolized his field. 95 of the hundred and fifteen paintings in the melon collection, which gets donated to the public, which I'll talk about why he did this, was also a genius move in a little bit, came to Mellon through Duvine. Mellon, think about that. At this point, Andrew Mellon, one of the largest art collectors in the United States, he might not be the largest, but he's on the short list. He might be the fifth, might be the second, might be the 10th. He certainly sure as hell is not the hundredth, right? So one of the largest.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “In many cases, once they sell, or excuse me, once the Huntingtons or Rubberans buy, they rarely sell. And so even many decades later, when this piece is being written, it's still hanging, that painting was still hanging in the Huntington mansion in California. And even that worked in Duveen's favor because Mellon heard that, oh, the next day somebody else bought what I said I wasn't interested in. What if I had changed my mind? Now I can't get it. It stuck. So then the next time that Duveen has something that he thinks Melon is interested in, it causes Mellon to act faster. Melon did not make the same mistake again. Duveen offers him a painting by Romney. It is the highest price ever paid for Romney. Duvine offered it to him and Mellon immediately bought it.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “And he doesn't even show up. He doesn't have to show up for the bidding. He just tells the guy, he's like, I have an unlimited bid. Whatever your highest bid is, I will pay more. So by default, he has to be the winner. And this is what he said about this. Duveen admitted that the price he had paid was steep, but he repeated his cardinal dictum. When you pay high for the priceless, you're getting it cheap. Another saying of his, endlessly repeated to his American clients was, you can get all the paintings you want at $50,000 apiece. That is easy. But to get paintings at a quarter of a million dollars apiece, that takes doing. And then he would go out of his way to stroke and to encourage FOMO, the fear of missing out. He offers this deal to Andrew Mellon. Andrew's like, oh, I'm not interested. The next day he calls up H.E. Huntington. Huntington built a bunch of railroads. He offers it to him. Huntington buys. And then once it's...”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Example of what he would do to make sure that he didn't miss out, right? It's not like, oh, if I don't win this auction, you know, there's a second thing that's kind of like this. It's like either it's zero sum. One winner, everybody else loses. The circumstances attending Duveen's purchase of this painting called The Pinky in 1926 illustrate his tenacity in the fight he made to establish his preeminence among the art dealers of the world from the beginning. Duveen felt that his educational mission was twofold. Number one, to teach millionaire American collectors what the great works of art were, and two, to teach them that they could only get those works of art through him. So number one, I sell the best, and I'm the only one that has them, right? And so this other rival dealer that's like, hey, I'm going to bid on Pinky 2. And so what does Juveen do? Duvine goes to this is an art auction that is being run by Christie's and he goes to the manager of Christie's.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Andrew Mellon, right? This is the son of Judge Mellon, who is the patriarch of the Mellon family dynasty. But at this time, not he very wealthy, he's also the secretary of the Treasury of the United States. And so now you have Duvine's name associated with literally the best people in the world. Not only are they richest, in some cases they held the highest, like some of the highest government positions. So it says Andrew Mellon, the Secretary of Treasury of the United States, has purchased from Duvine for $970,000. A painting doesn't even matter what the painting is, here's again, the scarcity, the time aspect of it, right? The painting bears Raphael's signature and the date 1508. And so to other people, it felt like he was overpaying. He understood that his entire business only works if he has, if you can control supply and he has access to literally the best and the most desired art of all the world. And so this is.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Years, highest price ever paid and unbelievably scarce the opportunity to buy this comes up only once every 200 years do you want to act and if you act you have to act now another example Sir Joseph Veen, the international art dealer bought in London yesterday the entire collection he does this all the time like he did he'll buy you know one-off pieces if they're the best or whatever he'll buy entire collections and then he'll just store them again controlling supply the entire collection of 120 Italian of the old masters belonging to this very wealthy European or noble European this entire collection will be brought to New York the purchase price was three million dollars in 1927 and then not only did his when he bought merchandise right and supply it was covered but when he sold it was also covered this is again early to bed earlier eyes work like hell and advertise”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Unintended positive externalities that came from Duvine constantly outbidding everybody and his hell bent on controlling supply one way you have to do that is sometimes you have to pay more than you think it's worth and so he was paying crazy prices they were so crazy that they were covered they were newsworthy So he's got essentially unlimited free advertising because he buys, let's say he spends, I'm going to give you like three examples to spread throughout the 1920s that are covered in the Herald Tribune, which essentially they're they function as free advertising for them. And so this is like an example. Sir, Joseph Duvine, the art dealer, has bought a Rambrandt for $410,000. That's $410,000 in 1926. One of the highest prices ever paid and then listen to this next line. I interrupted the sentence for you. Listen to this. So highest price ever paid. And this Rembrandt had been in the possession of the family for two.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “In the world. And what is also interesting, which Davine also shares in common with Gagozian, is the fact that he would essentially, he was the business, right? He would travel all over the world. He'd go rotate between Paris, New York, and London. And his entire business travels with him. And so when he goes to London, he winds up staying in the same, like if he's in Paris, he stays at the Ritz, if he's in London, he stays at Clarege's. And he sets up his suite there as like miniature art galleries is the way to think about this. This is very, this is funny. So he sets up his suite there, right? All of his accommodations at all points on any itinerary, anywheres in the world, right? It's going to be transformed into a small scale art gallery. He invites you over. He may be staying there, but it looks like an art gallery. He ranges the paintings, sculptures, and the objects so that his clients and friends could visit him in a proper setting and possibly take home some of his furnishings.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “His customers that buying art was also buying upper class status. And maybe the highest class possible because these are the former possessions of kings and emperors. And so multiple times it's talked about the fact that this guy, first of all, insane levels of high agency, insane levels of high levels of disagreeableness, although he was very nice and liked, but he wouldn't budge on pricing, whatever case is. But he's also highly competitive, and it makes perfect sense because he wanted to not just be the best in the world, but literally the only person that these people would ever even think about buying art from and to constantly teach, you know, repetitionist persuasive. And so to constantly teach them that, that's why he would say, hey, you know, you have plenty of money. You can replace that money many, many times over, but you are acquiring something that is irreplaceable. Another way he would describe that later on is that you are trading the infinite, which is money, right, with the finite, which is there's only one of these.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Of men with whom Duvine did the major part of his business, these eight or ten clients, would come into this building to look at the garnered possessions of kings and emperors. And so therefore they must be provided with an environment that would tend to make them conscious of their right to inherit these possessions. So one, the interesting thing is you don't need many customers. If the few customers that you have are the richest people in the world, right? He built his entire business around eight to ten people. And two, he understood that they were very wealthy. Most of them came from nothing, or if not they did, their father came from nothing. I think John D. Rockefeller's junior's case, right? But what they lacked is they didn't have prestige. They didn't have titles. They didn't have nobility, all the things that Europe had in abundance, but no cash. And so it's like, well, if you buy this, right, you are essentially, if you really think about what Duvine is doing, he's teaching his market. He's teaching.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Is going to expire on the 31st of December. You can either buy them, and I've made it very clear I'm not budging on the price, right? You can either buy them on December 31st or I have to take them back. So that's, again, a very advanced understanding setting a deadline of human psychology. And so what happens is the day before the option expires, Rockefeller writes Duveen informs him that he is buying all three of them for a million and a half dollars. And it's this fundamental ability to understand and really focus in on his customers because he essentially says the eight or ten clients at this part of the story, they're talking about the fact that he put a lot of money into building a gallery slash house very similar to what Gagozin did. This is on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and he hired great architects and he had to make it beautiful because his point was like, well, I have eight or ten big clients, right? These are the ones most of them are in New York. These are the ones that are going to enter into this building.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Very rich through the depression. A lot of the Texas oil billionaires, because they had no money in the stock market. And so in the Northeast at the time, everybody's getting destroyed. All of Texas's wealth isn't, you know, coming from the ground. And so they were essentially immune to the effects of the Great Depression. We see something very similar here. He's like, listen, I'm not in. My entire business is selling pictures, right? I'm taking European art and selling it to rich Americans. I'm not worried about the stock market. And so Devine actually turns around. It's like, oh, since you're trying to negotiate me, you're hard up on money. And so I will come to your assistance. Duvine managed to convey the suggestion that if Rockefeller was in temporary financial difficulty, he Duvine was ready to come to his assistance. And so what happens? Okay. So they says, I want to sell these things to you for these three statues for a million and a half dollars. You think that's too high? Take them. Let them in your house for a year, right? That's going to expire on the 30th.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “During that time, Juvine hoped that the attraction between Rockefeller Jr. and the bus would ripen into a motion that was more intense. And so keep in mind, this is 1934. Look at this psychological jiu-jitsu that Juven is going to do on Rockefeller Jr., right? So a few months later, he's got a year. A few months later, Rockefeller writes a letter. He's like, hey, I have a counter proposal. I'll buy the bus for a million dollars, right? Because the depression is on and most people are feeling the effects of it. And Rockefeller said, hey, you know, you might because of the depression, you might welcome a million in cash. And therefore, I am immune and not the least bit affected by the depression. Isn't that interesting? I always love the idea of like the order in which you read things can change your interpretation of it. And so last week, you and I talked about Texas oil billionaires and Moni Mun Krief was.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Enormous respect for the prices he set on the objects he bought and sold. Often his clients tried to maneuver him into a position where he might relax his Was an instance of this kind of maneuvering in nineteen thirty four. So he is selling three statues, right? Three busts. He wants to sell them. All three of them to Rockefeller's son. So this is John D. Rockefeller Jr. Okay, so he's like, hey, who's a massive collector and a huge customer of Duvine? And so he's like, hey, I'll sell you. Duvine says, I will sell you these three bus for a million and a half dollars. Rockefeller says, oh, that price might be too high. So what does Duveen do? He's presented with that. He does not negotiate down. He's like, oh, I want a million and a half. Rockefeller's like, I'll give you a million. Like Duveen's like, no, I'm going to give you the bust, put them up in your house. And I think he gives them a year, right? So it says it is a year. So he says he allowed Rockefeller a year's options on the bust, right? So they are going to remain for a year in the Rockefeller mansion as non-paying guests. That's hilarious.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “into Duvine's thinking. Duvine, who had already decided what he would charge some American customer it would be a price that he could not ask for a picture that had cost him just a mere eighteen thousand pounds so he shouted reproachfully at her My dear lady, the very least you should let that picture go for is twenty five thousand pounds Swept off her feet by his enthusiasm, again that word enthusiasm is going to be repeated over and over again by people around Duveen swept off her feet by his enthusiasm the lady capitulated and so this next story is nuts and it just goes into this idea that a lot of people view it's part of human nature we interpret price as a signal for quality right a shortcut for quality so he's like hey I'm not you know you want to sell this to me for 18,000 pounds nope I'm gonna give you 25,000 pounds that sounds crazy but this is why Duvine had”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I will pay the biggest price you ever saw. And no surprise here. To this technique, the Dukes and the Barons responded warmly, and so they sold only to him. And he would continue this later on. He dies, I think, in the 1930s. So part of his career has overlaps with the Great Depression. And he said, depression or no depression, it was Duveen's principle to pay the highest conceivable prices. Listen to this. A titled Englishwoman had a family portrait to sell. Duveen asked her what she wanted for it, and she meekly said £18,000. Duvine was indignant. What? 18,000 pounds for a picture of this quality. That is ridiculous, my dear lady. Ridiculous. He began to extol the virtues of the picture as if he were selling it. And indeed, in his mind, right, instead of buying it, he was already selling it. It kind of haggle in reverse ensued. Finally, the owner asked him what he thought the picture was worth. And this is a key insight.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “The head of the state saying to an important dealer that he might consider parting with a lovely piece if the price was right. Now, this is another thing that I think was unique to the way Duveen built his business. He wanted to control supply. He wanted to say, hey, I have literally the best and rarest pieces of art all over the world. They're not available anywhere else. And so to do that, he would routinely pay the highest prices, far exceeding what anyone had paid before. And in this bizarre world of capitalism that we're at at the very highest end, this actually made the fact that he overpaid made his merchandise more valuable in the eyes of the buyer. So in negotiating with the heads of noble families, Duveen usually won hands down over the other dealers. The brashness of his attack simply bowled over the dukes and the barons. He didn't waste any time. He talked prices and he talked big prices. He would say this is the greatest thing I ever saw.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Of the art evolving into more acute doubts about whether he would let them buy it. So remember that idea, the importance of controlling supply. It's an idea you and I are going to come back to over and over again. This was very fascinating. He built up this massive information network. And so this is going to be repeated throughout his career as well. So it says Duvine received daily reports from his galleries. So he's got galleries in York and London and Paris telling them what customers had come in, what pictures they had looked at, and for how long and what they said about those pictures. From other sources, he got reports on any major collections being offered for sale. He also got reports from his quote-unquote runners. These are people that he deployed all over Europe to hunt out noblemen on the verge of settling for solvency and a bit of loose change at the sacrifice of some of their family portraits. These reports might include the gossips coming from servants who had overheard”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Pick up 48 laws of power. This is what is in the book on this idea of the importance of scarcity and controlling supply to Duvine's business. The art dealer, Joseph DeVine, insisted on making the paintings he sold as scarce and as rare as possible. To keep their prices elevated and their status high, he bought up entire collections and stored them in his basement. The paintings that he sold became more than just paintings. They were fetish objects. Their value was increased by their rarity. He was intent. Over and over again, he wanted to control supply. He bought an entire collections. He'd pay higher prices than anybody else. And then he would stimulate demand by saying, hey, there's only one of these, but I got 10 clients just like you. And if you don't buy this, I'm going to pick up the phone. I'm going to walk down the street. I'm going to sell to somebody else, making his clients conscious that whereas he had unique access to great art, his outlets for it were multiple. He watched their doubts about the price.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “He was super excited about what he was doing. And so it says there was never any doubts in his own mind. Each picture. So remember, this is written back in 1951. They use the word picture. I think today you and I would use the word painting. So it says there were never any doubts in his mind. Each painting he had to sell, each piece of sculpture was the greatest since the last one and until the next one. And the reason he was the most successful art dealer of all time until Larry Gagozian, I think now obviously Larry Gozian has surpassed him. Obviously, you know, standing on the Gagozian is standing on the shoulders of giants, one of those giants being Duvine, was the fact that he was obsessed. Duveen was obsessed with scarcity and controlling supply. And so what he would say is he would tell his clients they could replace the money that they have many times over, but they were acquiring the irreplaceable when they bought a Duvine. And so let me give you a little summary of this. I'm going to put this down.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Let's say he's got an appointment tomorrow with Andrew Mellon or Henry Clay Frick or a ton of these people that you and I have studied. I've done episodes on all these people. It's really cool how many people that are mentioning this article in this profile that I've done multiple episodes on. But let's say he's going to meet with them tomorrow, right? The day before he will have literally act out how that interview is likely to go, how that sales process is likely to go. He will map out all the strategic possibilities. He will rehearse it. And then by the time he's in person with the client, it almost seems like second nature, like, oh, this is just for the moment when it's no, everything with this guy is extremely, extremely methodical. Another thing that I noticed, which is very fascinating and something I believe wholeheartedly, the enthusiasm that you have for your product is transferable to other people. And everybody talks to me. He's like, they talk over and over again about his enthusiasm, the fact that he was fun to be around.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “That simple idea. His business had very few moving parts. Like, hey, I'm going to buy all this hard to find art in Europe, and I'm going to connect that. I'm going to then take it across the Atlantic Ocean and sell it to the rich robber barons in America. That's his entire business and everything he does because Genius has a fewest moving parts. It allows him to think about it in ways where if you spread yourself thin or you're working on a million different things, you're not going to come up with the ideas that he does. So one example of this is like he was a big believer in practice. And so what would happen is first of all, he built his entire freaking business off of just a handful of clients, which obviously if your clients are the richest people in the world, you don't need that many of them, right? But what would he do is he would study them intently and get to know like their tastes, their traits, their personality, what's important to him. And then he would build like these little models of how this person acts or thinks. And he would explain that to his secretary. And so the day before.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “From that introduction was the fact that, hey, he built his career really on a combination of two ideas, right? It's like this guy just noticed, hey, Europe has plenty of art at the time he's living, this late 1800s, early 1900s, right, when he's building his business. Europe has plenty of art, no money. America has plenty of money. And I love that line where it's like his entire astonishing career was the product of that simple observation. So something I thought about as I read that was it's a combination of two of my favorite ideas. One came from Charlie Munger that I've thought about for years and it's really what I'm trying to do with Founders Podcast is, hey, find a simple idea and take that idea seriously. I found that idea when I read Portrait Dominic many, many years ago for the first time because in that book, Charlie says there's an old two-part rule that often works wonders in business and science and elsewhere. It is take a simple basic idea and take it very seriously. And then the second idea.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “That he dealt with were the direct opposite of his own. The great American millionaires of the Duvine era were slow speaking and slow thinking and cautious and secretive and deliberate. They were the emperors of oil and steel, of department stores and railroads and newspapers, of stocks and bonds, of utilities and banking, and these men had trained themselves to talk slowly and pause before each word. Duvine dealt constantly with cryptic men like JP Morgan and Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Mellon. That was an excerpt from this long form two part New Yorker profile that I'm going to talk to you about today. It's called The Days of Duvine, a legendary art dealer and his clients, and it was written by SN Burnham all the way back in 1951. And before I jump back into the profile, I want to tell you how this came on my radar. A few months ago, when I was researching and”

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  30. “And he felt that the world must stop while he got what he wanted. He had a convulsive drive, a boundless and explosive fervor, and a reckless contempt for works of art handled by rival dealers. That's a funny way to say that he was extremely, extremely competitive. One time in New York, a millionaire collector who was so undisciplined that he was thinking of buying a sixteenth century Italian painting from another art dealer asked Juvine to come to his mansion on Fifth Avenue to take a look at it. The prospective buyer watched Juvine's face closely and he saw his nostrils quiver. I sniff fresh paint. said Duvine. Duvine's remarks about other people's pictures sometimes resulted in lawsuits that lasted for years, cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars, and brought him into courts in New York and London and Paris. In his business, Duvine had to bear that the temperaments of the men”

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  31. “Career. That was a coincidence. So he'd provide rich Americans entrance into these country homes of European nobility. These homes were full of ancestral portraits that were for sale. Duveen also wrangled hotel accommodations and passage on sold-out ships for his clients. He got his client's houses, and he provided architects to build them houses. And then he saw to it that the architects planned the interiors of these houses with wall space that demanded plenty of pictures. He even selected brides for some of his clients. These selections of potential brides had to meet the same refined standard that governed his choice of houses for his clients, which meant a bride that was receptive to collecting expensive art.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Joseph DeVine noticed that Europe had plenty of art, and America had plenty of money, and his entire astonishing career was the product of that one simple observation. Beginning in eighteen eighty six when he was seventeen, he was perpetually journeying between Europe where he stocked up on merchandise and America where he sold that merchandise. There was almost nothing Duvine wouldn't do for his important clients. These immensely rich Americans were shy and suspicious of casual contacts because of their wealth and often did know where to go or what to do with themselves when they traveled abroad. Duvine provided them with an entrance to the great country homes of the European nobility. It was just a coincidence, a fabricated coincidence which you and I will talk about a few times today that Duvine always did. There's nothing as you'll see as we go through this. There's nothing in this guy's life.”

    2024-02-20 · Founders · #339 Joseph Duveen: Robber Baron Art Dealer · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source