Henri Vever (1854–1942) was one of the most preeminent European jewelers of the early 20th century, operating the family business, Maison Vever, started by his grandfather. Henri was also a collector of a broad range of fine art, including prints, paintings, and books of both European and Asian origin. By the 1880s, Vever became one of the earliest Europeans to formally collect Japanese

ukiyo-e Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk t ...

woodblock prints, purchasing extensively from dealers such as Hayashi Tadamasa. He was a member of ''Les Amis de l'Art Japonais'', a group of Japanese art enthusiasts including

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. Durin ...

, that met regularly to discuss Japanese prints and other works over dinner. By the early 20th century, Vever had amassed a collection of many thousands of fine

prints. His collection was so well regarded that the authors of some of the pioneering European scholarly works on ukiyo-e used Vever's collection for much their research on actual prints. Such authors include von Seidlitz, Migeon, and Lemoisne, whose ''L'Estampe Japonaise'' used Vever's prints exclusively. At the peak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, however, Vever chose (or was forced) to dispose of the bulk of his collection, selling some 7996 prints to the Japanese industrial mogul Matsukata Kōjirō, who purchased them sight-unseen based on the collection's reputation. The prints would eventually find their way to the

Tokyo National Museum The or TNM is an art museum in Ueno Park in the Taitō ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the four museums operated by the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage ( :ja:国立文化財機構), is considered the oldest national museum in Japan, ...

, forming the bulk of that institution's ukiyo-e corpus. Many of Vever's prints also ended up in the national museums of France, donated earlier by Vever himself. Khalili Collection Enamels of the World FR315

Khalili Collection Enamels of the World FR315

Although the thousands of pieces that made their way back to Japan via Matsukata included many of the masterpieces of the ukiyo-e movement, Vever had kept many of his best prints for himself and continued to collect after the First World War, acquiring pieces from former rivals Gonse, Haviland, Manzi, Isaac, and Javal as their collections went to the auction houses of Paris. He stopped collecting in the 1930s, and his "legendary" collection disappeared the following decade amid

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

and the

German occupation of France The Military Administration in France (german: Militärverwaltung in Frankreich; french: Occupation de la France par l'Allemagne) was an interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zo ...

, not to reappear until 1974 when

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

announced that the collection would be auctioned. The sale took place in four parts, each in London: * Part I: 26 March 1974, 412 lots * Part II: 26 March 1975, 410 lots * Part III: 24 March 1977, 415 lots * Final Part: 30 October 1997, 197 lots Works from the first two parts were soon re-printed, together with 148 prints not sold at those auctions, in a limited-edition (2000-copy) three-volume catalog: ''Japanese Prints & Drawings from the Vever Collection'', by Jack Hillier. Vever's grandson, François Mautin, competed at the

1928 Winter Olympics The 1928 Winter Olympics, officially known as the II Olympic Winter Games (french: IIes Jeux olympiques d'hiver; german: II. Olympische Winterspiele; it, II Giochi olimpici invernali; rm, II Gieus olimpics d'enviern) and commonly known as St. M ...

in the

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

tournament.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vever, Henri Ukiyo-e 20th-century art collectors French art collectors 1854 births 1942 deaths