Jules Bache
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
-born American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
banker, art collector and philanthropist
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
.
Biography
Born in Germany, as a young boy his family emigrated to the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, settling in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. In 1881, he started work as a cashier at Leopold Cahn & Co., a stockbrokerage firm founded by his uncle. In 1886 he was made a minority partner and in 1892 took full control of the business, renaming it J. S. Bache & Co.
Bache & Co.
Bache & Company was a securities deim that provided stock brokerage and investment banking services. The firm, which was founded in 1879, was based in New York, New York....
Jules Bache built the company into one of the top brokerage houses in the United States, outranked only by Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch is the wealth management division of Bank of America. With over 15,000 financial advisors and $2.2 trillion in client assets it is the world's largest brokerage. Formerly known as Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., prior to 2009 the firm was publicly owned and traded on the New York...
. In the process, he became an immensely wealthy individual, a patron of the arts, and a philanthropist.
During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Jules Bache donated money to the American Field Service in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and his wife was the honorary treasurer of the "War Babies' Cradle," a charity
Charitable organization
A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...
that provided aid for mothers and children in distress in war-torn Northern France and Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
to provide them with food, clothing, heating fuel and medical care.
Jules Bache was a shareholder of a number of prominent corporations and sat on the board of directors of many of them. Among his personal holdings, Bache had sizeable interests in Canadian mining companies. His equity in these companies were held by his Bahamas based corporation that allowed him to legally avoid some of the high personal U.S. surtaxes, a fact which he would be publicly criticized for as a result of the Federal investigations during the 1930s into the causes of the Wall Street Crash of 1929
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
. Bache however believed that high taxation was a hindrance to economic growth and published a booklet titled "Release business from the slavery of taxation." A major shareholder in Dome Mines Limited
Placer Dome
Placer Dome Inc. was a large mining company specializing in gold and other precious metals, with corporate headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada....
, Bache served as company president from 1919 until 1942 and was Chairman of the Board at the time of his passing. After the brokerage firm of Dillon, Read & Company acquired the Dodge Brothers Automobile Company
Dodge
Dodge is a United States-based brand of automobiles, minivans, and sport utility vehicles, manufactured and marketed by Chrysler Group LLC in more than 60 different countries and territories worldwide....
in 1923, Jules Bache acquired a substantial position in Chrysler Corporation.
Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici
Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici was an Italian nobleman, one of three sons of Lorenzo the Magnificent.-Biography:He was born in Florence, Italy. His brothers were Piero and Giovanni de' Medici....
," then attributed to Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
. He would acquire numerous other important works including those by or attributed to Rembrandt, Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
, Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
, Diego Velázquez
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
, Gerard David
Gerard David
Gerard David was an Early Netherlandish painter and manuscript illuminator known for his brilliant use of color.-Life:...
, Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...
, and Sandro Botticelli
Sandro Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance...
, amongst others. In 1937 he opened his magnificent art collection to the public, and in 1943 gifted some of his works to the Detroit Institute of Arts
Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts is a renowned art museum in the city of Detroit. In 2003, the DIA ranked as the second largest municipally owned museum in the United States, with an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars...
. In 1944, the remainder of his collection was given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in New York.
A supporter of American theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
and Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, in 1941 Jules Bache helped found the New York branch of the Escholier Club.
Death
Jules Bache died in 1944 in Palm Beach, FloridaPalm Beach, Florida
The Town of Palm Beach is an incorporated town in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The Intracoastal Waterway separates it from the neighboring cities of West Palm Beach and Lake Worth...
and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery
Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx
Woodlawn Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in New York City and is a designated National Historic Landmark.A rural cemetery located in the Bronx, it opened in 1863, in what was then southern Westchester County, in an area that was annexed to New York City in 1874.The cemetery covers more...
in the Bronx, New York. His tomb is a replica of the Temple of Isis at Philae
Philae
Philae is an island in the Nile River and the previous site of an Ancient Egyptian temple complex in southern Egypt...
.
He told The Literary Digest
Literary Digest
The Literary Digest was an influential general interest weekly magazine published by Funk & Wagnalls. Founded by Isaac Kaufmann Funk in 1890, it eventually merged with two similar weekly magazines, Public Opinion and Current Opinion.-History:...
his name was pronounced Baitch, "A rhyme with aitch." (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)
See also
- Bache & Co.Bache & Co.Bache & Company was a securities deim that provided stock brokerage and investment banking services. The firm, which was founded in 1879, was based in New York, New York....