(Henri) James Simon (17 September 185123 May 1932) was a German-Jewish entrepreneur, art collector, philanthropist and patron of the arts during the

Wilhelmine The Wilhelmine Period () comprises the period of German history between 1890 and 1918, embracing the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the German Empire from the resignation of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck until the end of World War I and Wilhelm' ...

period. He donated most of his significant collections to the

Berlin State Museums The Berlin State Museums (german: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) are a group of institutions in Berlin, Germany, comprising seventeen museums in five clusters, several research institutes, libraries, and supporting facilities. They are overseen ...

, including the famous

Nefertiti bust The Nefertiti Bust is a painted stucco-coated limestone bust of Nefertiti, the Great Royal Wife of Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten. The work is believed to have been crafted in by Thutmose because it was found in his workshop in Amarna, Egypt. It ...

Biography

Henri James Simon was born in Berlin, the son of a well-off Jewish cotton merchant. He attended the

Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster The Evangelisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster, located in suburban Schmargendorf, Berlin, is an independent school with a humanistic profile, known as one of the most prestigious schools in Germany. Founded by the Evangelical Church in West Berli ...

and received a six-month traineeship at Bradford, then a centre of textile manufacture, before he became a partner with his father in 1876. Though a reserved man, he played an influential role in the German society, especially by his participation at a regular roundtable with Emperor

Wilhelm II , house = Hohenzollern , father = Frederick III, German Emperor , mother = Victoria, Princess Royal , religion = Lutheranism (Prussian United) , signature = Wilhelm II, German Emperor Signature-.svg Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor ...

. Simon and other invitees like

Albert Ballin Albert Ballin (15 August 1857 – 9 November 1918) was a German shipping magnate. He was the general director of the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG) or Hamburg-America Line, which for a time was the world's largest s ...

and Carl Fürstenberg as well as Emil and

Walther Rathenau Walther Rathenau (29 September 1867 – 24 June 1922) was a German industrialist, writer and liberal politician. During the First World War of 1914–1918 he was involved in the organization of the German war economy. After the war, Rathenau s ...

discussed economic life and tried to give the emperor an understanding of a Jewish perspective on social issues. Their close relationship with the erratic ruler was criticized by

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

contemporaries and they were later mocked as the "Emperor's Jews" (''Kaiserjuden'') by

Chaim Weizmann Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( he, חיים עזריאל ויצמן ', russian: Хаим Евзорович Вейцман, ''Khaim Evzorovich Veytsman''; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israe ...

. James Simon died in Berlin and is buried at the Jewish cemetery on Schönhauser Allee in

Prenzlauer Berg Prenzlauer Berg () is a locality of Berlin, forming the southerly and most urban district of the borough of Pankow. From its founding in 1920 until 2001, Prenzlauer Berg was a district of Berlin in its own right. However, that year it was incor ...

. Wilhelm II sent a wreath from his Dutch exile. Parts of his collection that were not donated to the state museums were auctioned.

Art collecting

Simon shared an interest for archaeology with Wilhelm II. In 1898, he was one of the founders of the

Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft The Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (, ''German Oriental Society''), abbreviated DOG, is a German voluntary association based in Berlin dedicated to the study of the Near East. The DOG was officially founded in January 1898 to foster public interes ...

in collaboration with

Wilhelm von Bode Wilhelm von Bode (10 December 1845 – 1 March 1929) was a German art historian and museum curator. Born Arnold Wilhelm Bode in Calvörde, he was ennobled in 1913. He was the creator and first curator of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, now c ...

. In 1911 Simon provided the financing of

Ludwig Borchardt Ludwig may refer to: People and fictional characters * Ludwig (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Ludwig (surname), including a list of people * Ludwig Ahgren, or simply Ludwig, American YouTube live streamer and ...

's excavations at Pharaoh

Akhenaten Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( egy, ꜣḫ-n-jtn ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth D ...

's city in Amarna, and many of the found artefacts, which included the sculpted busts of

Nefertiti Neferneferuaten Nefertiti () ( – c. 1330 BC) was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a radical change in national religious policy, in which ...

and

Tiye Tiye (c. 1398 BC – 1338 BC, also spelled Tye, Taia, Tiy and Tiyi) was the daughter of Yuya and Thuya. She became the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III. She was the mother of Akhenaten and grandmother of Tutankhamun. ...

from a

court sculptor A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or princely family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Painters were the most common, but the cour ...

's workshop outside the main tomb area, became his property. This purchase, which was according to a 1913 partition treaty with the Egyptian Département des antiquités under

Gaston Maspero Sir Gaston Camille Charles Maspero (23 June 1846 – 30 June 1916) was a French Egyptologist known for popularizing the term "Sea Peoples" in an 1881 paper. Maspero's son, Henri Maspero, became a notable sinologist and scholar of East Asia. ...

, is still disputed. They were taken to his villa on

Tiergartenstraße Tiergartenstraße is a street in the Tiergarten district in central Berlin, the capital of Germany. The street runs east-west along the southern edge of the Großer Tiergarten park from Kemperplatz and Ben-Gurion-Straße near Sony Center and P ...

No. 15a with the intention of creating a public collection. In his later years, he placed various parts of his collection on permanent loan, first to the

Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum The Bode-Museum (English: ''Bode Museum''), formerly called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (''Emperor Frederick Museum''), is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. It was built from 1898 to 1904 by order of Germ ...

, which opened in 1904, and then to the

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...

in 1920. A new building designed by David Chipperfield was added and named for him on Museum Island in Berlin, Germany.

Philanthropy

Simon was one of early donors to the

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology ( he, הטכניון – מכון טכנולוגי לישראל) is a public research university located in Haifa, Israel. Established in 1912 under the dominion of the Ottoman Empire, the Technion ...

Haifa Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

. He helped to underwrite Jewish German societies, and funded Germany's first public swimming pool.Nazis erased his legacy, now Berlin honors a promise to its top museum patron
Haaretz

References

External links

James Simon Foundation

in ''

Tagesspiegel ''Der Tagesspiegel'' (meaning ''The Daily Mirror'') is a German daily newspaper. It has regional correspondent offices in Washington D.C. and Potsdam. It is the only major newspaper in the capital to have increased its circulation, now 148,000, ...

'', 18 October 2006 {{DEFAULTSORT:Simon, Henri James 1851 births 1932 deaths German art collectors 19th-century art collectors 20th-century art collectors 19th-century German businesspeople 20th-century German businesspeople 19th-century German Jews German philanthropists Businesspeople from Berlin Jewish philanthropists

Biography

Art collecting

Philanthropy

See also

References

External links