Activities

Fans of Julian Fellowes’ series, “The Gilded Age” may only recently have been introduced to the American robber barons, industrialists famed for their then obscene wealth. Few among these titans of industry, however, were known for refinement as collectors. Instead, they spent millions on flashy Newport, Rhode Island “cottages” and Manattan townhouses wherein opulence was more important than taste. However, George Jay Gould, son of the “most hated man in America” railroad magnate Jay Gould, did create a collection of excellence later to be dispersed to a new generation of aesthetes such as Marjorie Merriwether Post. Instructed by famed taste maker Joseph Duveen, Gould became one of the first proponents of the Duveen look we will discover in this lecture.

We are thrilled to host John D Ward, head of Silver at Sotheby’s NY via Zoom, recruited for this KCWC presentation after his lecture at the Wallace Collection in March.