renowned financier jp morgan --7/24/26

24 Jul 2026

renowned financier jp morgan --7/24/26

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Today's selection-- from Secrets of an Art Dealer by James Henry Duveen. The legendary financier J.P. Morgan was esteemed for his art collection.

"In a charming old manor house in Surrey there live[d] … that Nestor of all art experts and connoisseurs, the internationally known Dr. George C. Williamson who became one of the firmest friends of the great John Pierpont Morgan, the elder, during the latter years of his life. The number of the doctor's works on Art and many other matters would fill a good-sized catalogue. Perhaps the most interesting, from the layman's point of view, is his Stories of an Expert. This contains stories in which, to those conversant with the inner history of arc collecting during the last half century, solutions are provided to many puzzling secrets.

“Dr. Williamson has not stressed his learning and acumen which decided the fate of many enormous transactions, but some of these adventures connected with Morgan's collections are fragments of secret history known only to a select few of the initiated.

“The doctor’s first meeting with the multi-millionaire was due to an interesting little ‘game’ played on Morgan. Incidentally, this shows him in a new light, as something more than the pitiless financier who surpassed the Goulds, Mackays and the Vanderbilts, and who, at the time of his death, controlled interests totalling, I believe, some 22,000 millions of dollars!

“There is, to my mind, no doubt that Morgan always intended his vast collections to be left to and preserved by the American nation. At the cost of millions of pounds his agents had ransacked the artistic treasure houses of Europe and the East. When he died in 1913, lovers of art were astounded to hear that his son, as heir and executor, had decided to sell several portions of these collections, many of which were then on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of New York. Only the outbreak of the world war drowned the chorus of dismay, but by the terms of the will John Pierpont Morgan, Junior, was entirely within his rights in breaking up the finest collections the world has ever seen. This might justly be compared with that other great artistic tragedy, the dispersal by the Commonwealth of the carefully chosen treasures of King Charles I. The Chinese porcelains, the French decorative works of art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the incomparable painted room by Fragonard were sold for approximately £2,000,000. The tapestry collection was also sold at that time, the finest piece being the large fifteenth century panel depicting ‘The Adoration of God the Father,’ valued at £100,000. Incidentally, this panel had been the cause of the famous cause célèbre between the late Jacques Seligmann, of Paris, and Duveen Brothers. For several years Morgan had lent this panel, together with some of his special treasures, to the Victoria and Albert Museum, because the United States Treasury would not allow him to import them without paying the 60 per cent duty then levied on old works of art. The latest dispersal is the sale of many unique ‘Old Masters,’ and that of the unmatchable collection of miniatures.

Morgan in 1902

“Dr. Williamson, like many other lovers of beauty, had often longed for an opportunity to examine Morgan's fine collection of miniatures in his London house at Princes Gate, and at lase, after some long endeavour, Mr. Douglas, the secretary, wrote to say that if he would come on a certain morning he could look over them at his leisure. Morgan would be away on that day, and it was made clear that Dr. Williamson was on no account to make any notes for subsequent publication. At the sight of such wonderful things the doctor was overwhelmed: here were delicate masterpieces in endless numbers such as he had never hoped to see. He became so engrossed that presently he forgot the existence of the secretary and Henry, the faithful butler, who remained in the room. Presently he was staring at the Fauconberg miniature, framed in diamonds. He stretched out a hand, then withdrew it. Without looking round he said:

"May I take this to the window to look at it more closely?’

"Do what you like,’ came a gruff bark in his ear.

“Williamson spun round. There was the great emperor of finance himself, the autocrat of the world's sale rooms. Dr. Williamson had not seen him before, but there could be no possible mistake as to his identity. The secretary and Henry, who certainly were there a moment before, had vanished. A grim smile played round the great man's mouth as he watched the doctor's amazement.

"Know who I am, eh? So you are the man who never makes a mistake!’

"I-I've never said that,’ stammered the connoisseur.

"You admit to mistakes, then?’

''A good few," said the candid Williamson. ‘But I've owned up every time I found myself in the wrong.’ Morgan gave a hoot of laughter.

"Huh! You are the first expert to admit to me that he is fallible. You're more modest than your colleague Dr. Bode!’

“Again he gave a rough guffaw, while the doctor tried to explain that the man who says he has never made a mistake is either lying, or has never achieved anything.

"Quite right,’ snapped Morgan. ‘I've made many enough in my own affairs.’"