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Up for sale "Renowned Art Dealer" Arthur Vernay Hand Written 2 Page Letter.
May 1877 - 25 October 1960) was a noted English-born American art and antiques
dealer, decorator, big-game hunter, and naturalist explorer. He sponsored
expeditions across the world to collect biological specimens and cultural
artifacts on behalf of the American Museum of Natural
History. The Vernay-Faunthorpe Hall of South Asian mammals in the
AMNH is named after him. Born in Weymouth, England, Vernay was born to Louisa
Stannard and Thomas Crabb Avant. He immigrated to New York early around 1903-4
and changed his surname from Avant to Vernay. He found a job as an elevator
operator at a furniture store known as A.J. Crawfords and after working there
briefly, Vernay started his own shop in 1906, called Arthur S. Vernay, Inc.
located at 1 East 45th Street, near Madison Avenue. He also had a shop in
London at 217 Piccadilly in the late 1910s to 1920s. He sold antiques and
decorative artworks to a number of important and influential New Yorkers
including Ogden Codman Jr., Elsie de Wolfe, Sir Charles Carrick Allom, Consuelo Vanderbilt, Francis Patrick Garvan, Benjamin Altman, Solomon R. Guggenheim, William Russell Grace, as
well as leading art dealerships such as M Knoedler & Co, and the design firm Tiffany Studios. In
the 1920s, Vernay grew increasingly interested in game hunting and naturalist
exploration. In 1921 he stayed at the Biligirirangans with Ralph Camroux Morris and
saw wild animals in nature for the first time. He sponsored a collecting
expedition led by Colonel John Champion Faunthorpe intended
to enhance the American Museum of Natural
History's collection of Southeast Asian animals, Vernay joined
Faunthorpe into India in 1923. Eventually this expedition would culminate in
the American Museum of Natural
History's Vernay-Faunthorpe Hall of South Asiatic Mammals, which
opened in 1930 and held mounted elephants shot by the collectors in Mysore. He was elected Vice Patron of the Bombay Natural History
Society in 1928. In 1935 he became a trustee of the American
Museum of Natural History and in the same year he accompanied Charles Suydam Cutting to Tibet where they met the Dalai Lama. His last expedition was to Africa in 1946. Around
the same time he became very interested in orchids.
