He moved the Duveen company into the risky, but lucrative, trade in paintings and quickly became one of the world's leading art dealers due to his good eye, sharpened by his reliance on Bernard Berenson, and skilled salesmanship.

He made his fortune by buying works of art from declining European aristocrats and selling them to the millionaires of the United States.

1937), and secondly, in 1938, Bryan Hartop Burns, B.A., B.Ch., F.R.C.S., Orthopædic Surgeon to St George's Hospital, of Upper Wimpole Street, London.

In 1921, Duveen was sued by Andrée Hahn for $500,000 after making comments questioning the authenticity of a version of the Leonardo painting La belle ferronnière that she owned and had planned to sell.

[4] The case took seven years to come to trial and after the first jury returned an open verdict, Duveen agreed to settle, paying Hahn $60,000 plus court costs.

[6] Unhappy with the remnants of ancient pigment on the Marbles, he asked his agents to scrub them with sharp tools in order to make them white.

Because he was capable of making potentially generous payments to top-flight servants, he was often rewarded with information to which other art dealers never had access.

Duveen wrote their names and slipped it on a piece of paper to his father, when the lady was almost finished she innocently asked "We are buying so many tapestries, you must be wondering why?"

Duveen's father immediately beamed and said "Of course not, Lady Guinness, you have so many beautiful homes, you will need more than one tapestry to decorate them!"

Duveen exploited his American clients' wish for immortality through buying great works of art, an ambition in which they were successful: today only economic historians can name the rich partners of Frick, Mellon or Morgan.

[10] A popular Broadway play called Lord Pengo by S. N. Behrman and starring Charles Boyer was staged in 1962; the title character was clearly based on Duveen.