Joseph Duveen (1869-1939), who has been called the greatest salesman of his day, was an emblematic figure of the 1920s. Born in London to a large family of art dealers, Duveen (later Lord Duveen) was sent as a young man to New York to serve under his uncle, who headed the U.S. office of Duveen Brothers. For the next fifty years Joseph Duveen dominated the U.S. art market and had as his customers such tycoons as E. T. Stotesbury, William Randolph Hearst, S. H. Kress, Henry Goldman, Henry E. Huntington, and Andrew Mellon. Duveen convinced the American millionaires that through the accumulation of fine art they could rise from the grubby world of trade and gain immortality by passing on their collections to posterity. He also convinced most of them that great art was. available only from his firm and took...