{{Short description|American banker, art collector (1861–1944)}} {{Use American English|date=April 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=December 2020}} {{Infobox person | image = Jules Bache.jpg | image_size = | caption = Bache in 1911 | birth_name = Jules Semon Bache | birth_date = {{Birth date|1861|11|09}} | birth_place = New York City | death_date = {{Death date and age|1944|03|24|1861|11|09}} | death_place = Palm Beach, Florida | death_cause = | education = | spouse = {{Marriage|Florence R. Scheftel|May 23, 1892}} | occupation = Banker | children = Kathryn Bache Miller | family = Gilbert Miller (son-in-law) | signature = Signature of Jules Semon Bache.png }}
'''Jules Semon Bache''' (November 9, 1861 – March 24, 1944) was an American banker, art collector and philanthropist.
== Early life == Jules Bache was born into a Jewish family<ref>[http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/social-history/2008/best-friends-jewish-society-in-old-palm-beach New York Social Diary: "Best Friends: Jewish Society in Old Palm Beach"] 2008</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=w1xAAQAAMAAJ&dq=jules+bache&pg=PA396 The American Hebrew: "Jule S. Bache Operated On] February 17, 1922</ref> in New York City.<ref>{{cite web |title=Jules Bache |url=http://www.hbs.edu/leadership/database/leaders/jules_s_bache.html |access-date=December 17, 2013 |work=20th Century American Leaders Database |publisher=Harvard University}}</ref> His father, Semon Bache [né Bach], emigrated to the United States from his native Nuremberg, Bavaria,<ref>{{cite web |title=Semon BACHE b. 1826 Nuremberg, Bavaria d. 1891 New York |url=http://www.neilpiwovar.com/genealogy/tngfiles912/getperson.php?personID=I23016&tree=tree1 |website=www.neilpiwovar.com |access-date=February 1, 2015 |archive-date=April 2, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402183032/http://www.neilpiwovar.com/genealogy/tngfiles912/getperson.php?personID=I23016&tree=tree1 |url-status=dead }}</ref> settling in New York City, where he started the glassmaking firm Semon Bache & Company.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hall |first=Henry |url=https://archive.org/details/ldpd_6221441_000 |title=America's Successful Men of Affairs: The city of New York |date=1895 |publisher=New York Tribune |page=[https://archive.org/details/ldpd_6221441_000/page/n59 52] |quote=bache.}}</ref>
==Career== 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, he took full control of the business, renaming it J. S. Bache & Co. Jules Bache built the company into one of the top brokerage houses in the United States, outranked only by Merrill Lynch. In the process, he became an immensely wealthy individual, a patron of the arts, and a philanthropist.
During World War I, Jules Bache donated money to the American Field Service in France, and his wife was the honorary treasurer of the "War Babies' Cradle," a charity that provided aid for mothers and children in distress in war-torn Northern France and Belgium to provide them with food, clothing, heating fuel, and medical care.
In the 1920 presidential election, Bache was a presidential elector for Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rYg0AQAAMAAJ |title=Proceedings of the Electoral College of the State of New York, 1921 |publisher=J. B. Lyon Company |year=1921 |location=Albany, N.Y. |pages=6 |language=en}}</ref>
Jules Bache was a shareholder of a number of prominent corporations and sat on the boards of directors of many of them. Among his personal holdings, Bache had sizeable interests in Canadian mining companies. His equity in these companies was held by his Bahamas-based corporation, which allowed him to legally avoid some of the high personal U.S. surtaxes, a fact for which he would be publicly criticized as a result of the Federal investigations during the 1930s into the causes of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. 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, 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 & Co. acquired the Dodge Brothers Automobile Company in 1923, Jules Bache acquired a substantial position in Chrysler Corporation.
A supporter of American theater and Broadway, Jules Bache helped found the New York branch of the Escholier Club in 1941.thumb|300px|The mausoleum of Jules Bache
==Personal life and death== Bache married Florence R. Scheftel on May 23, 1892, and they had two daughters.<ref name="Cyclopaedia2">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZToOAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA263 |title=The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography |publisher=James T. White & Company |year=1910 |volume=XIV |pages=263–264 |access-date=2020-12-16 |via=Google Books}}</ref>
Jules Bache died in 1944 in Palm Beach, Florida, and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. His tomb is a replica of Trajan's Kiosk at Philae. In 1927, his daughter, Kathryn Bache Miller, married the theatrical producer Gilbert Miller in Paris, France.<ref name="obit2">{{cite news |date=October 16, 1979 |title=Kathryn B. Miller, Philanthropist, 83 |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/10/16/archives/kathryn-b-miller-philantropist-83-heiress-set-a-standard-of-living.html}}</ref><ref name="wedding2">{{cite news |date=July 17, 1927 |title=Miss Bache Weds Gilbert Miller |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1927/07/17/archives/miss-bache-weds-gilbert-miller-daughter-of-new-york-banker-marries.html}}</ref> His granddaughter, Muriel Bache Richards, married Francis Warren Pershing, the son of General John J. Pershing.<ref>{{Cite web |date=May 2, 1938 |title=The General Attends a Wedding - His Son Marries Muriel Bache Richards |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=00oEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22Frederick+Lloyd+Richards%22&pg=PA11 |publisher=Time}}</ref>
He told ''the Literary Digest'' his name was pronounced ''Baitch'', "A rhyme with ''aitch''." (Charles Earle Funk, ''What's the Name, Please?,'' Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)
==Art collection== In addition to his high profile in the business world, Jules Bache would also become well known for his art collecting, which received much press attention in 1929 when he purchased the portrait of "''Giuliano de Medici''," then attributed to Raphael. He would acquire numerous other important works, including those by or attributed to Rembrandt, Titian (including ''The Bache Madonna''), Albrecht Dürer, Diego Velázquez, Gerard David, Giovanni Bellini, and Sandro Botticelli, amongst others.
In 1937, he opened his magnificent art collection to the public. In 1943 the Second World War forced closure of his museum and the collection was loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art which had put its own masterworks into protective storage.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Anne |last=Hilker |title=The art of rivalry: The Jules S. Bache collection, its formation and its donation to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1919–44 |journal=Journal of the History of Collections |volume=36 |issue=2 |year=2024 |pages=319–338 |doi=10.1093/jhc/fhad044 }}</ref> In 1943, he donated some of his works to the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Bache was a major donor to the Department of Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://libmma.org/digital_files/archives/Preston_Remington_records_b18157099.pdf |title=Finding aid for the Preston Remington records, 1925–1970 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |access-date=25 July 2014 }}</ref>
At the time of his death in 1944, most of his picture collection, up until that time gifted to the Jules Bache Foundation, was given to the Museum; the remaining works of art from his estate at 814 Fifth Avenue were sold at auction.<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=New York Herald Tribune |date=April 1, 1945 |page=20 |title=Jules S. Bache Art Collection is Going on Sale: Works Not Donated to the Metropolitan Museum To Be Sold April 19, 20, 21 }} The auction was held at the Kende Galleries of Gimbel Brothers. ''The New York Times'', Sunday, April 1, 1945 adds that 'oil paintings and terracotta statuary' were to be sold on April 25.</ref> {| class='wikitable sortable' style="width:100%" !image !title !painter !date !accession number !The Met url |- | center|128px | ''Madonna and Child with Saints'' | Giovanni Bellini | | 49.7.1 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435642 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Madonna and Child'' | Workshop of Giovanni Bellini | 1510 | 49.7.2 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435644 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of a Young Man'' | Jacometto Veneziano | | 49.7.3 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436769 MET] |- | center|128px | ''The Coronation of the Virgin'' | Follower of Botticelli | 1500s | 49.7.4 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435731 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Madonna Lenti'' | Carlo Crivelli | 1472 | 49.7.5 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436052 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of a Woman'' | Master of the Castello Nativity | 1450s | 49.7.6 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437000 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Francesco Sassetti and His Son Teodoro'' | Domenico Ghirlandaio | 1488s | 49.7.7 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436489 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Descent from the Cross'' | Girolamo da Cremona | | 49.7.8 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436517 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Angels'' | Filippo Lippi | 1440s | 49.7.9 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436895 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Madonna and Child'' | Filippino Lippi | 1483s | 49.7.10 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436892 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Rodolfo Gonzaga (1451–1495)'' | Style of Andrea Mantegna | 1500s | 49.7.11 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436969 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Giuliano de' Medici (1479–1516), Duke of Nemours'' | Copy after Raphael | 1600s | 49.7.12 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437373 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Madonna and Child'' | Luca Signorelli | | 49.7.13 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437674 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of a Man'' | Lambert Sustris | | 49.7.14 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437768 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Madonna and Child'' | Titian | 1510 | 49.7.15 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437824 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Venus and Adonis'' | Titian | 1560 | 49.7.16 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437826 MET] |- | center|128px | ''The Flight into Egypt'' | Cosimo Tura | | 49.7.17 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437849 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Virgin and Child'' | Workshop of Dieric Bouts | 1475 | 49.7.18 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435766 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of a Carthusian'' | Petrus Christus | 1446 | 49.7.19 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435896 MET] |- | center|128px | ''The Nativity with Donors and Saints Jerome and Leonard'' | Gerard David | | 49.7.20a–c | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436099 MET] |- | center|128px | ''The Rest on the Flight into Egypt'' | Gerard David | 1513s | 49.7.21 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436101 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Virgin and Child'' | Workshop of Hans Memling | 1490 | 49.7.22 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437062 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Young Woman with a Pink'' | Hans Memling | 1485 | 49.7.23 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437059 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of a Man in a Turban'' | Netherlandish Painter | 1460s | 49.7.24 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437488 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Anthony van Dyck self portrait (Metropolitan Museum of Art)'' | Anthony van Dyck | 1620 | 49.7.25 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436258 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of Robert Rich, second earl of Warwick'' | Anthony van Dyck | 1634 | 49.7.26 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436256 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of an Italian Woman'' | German painter | 1600s | 49.7.27 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436246 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of a Man (Sir Ralph Sadler?)'' | Workshop of Hans Holbein the Younger | 1535 | 49.7.28 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436668 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Derick Berck of Cologne'' | Hans Holbein the Younger | 1536 | 49.7.29 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436659 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of a Young Woman'' | Workshop of Hans Holbein the Younger | 1540 | 49.7.30 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436667 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Edward VI (1537–1553), When Duke of Cornwall'' | Workshop of Hans Holbein the Younger | 1545 | 49.7.31 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436670 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of a Young Woman'' | an anonymous Netherlandish painter | 1535 | 49.7.32 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437205 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of Claes Duyst van Voorhout'' | Frans Hals | 1638 | 49.7.33 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436621 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of a Bearded Man with a Ruff'' | Frans Hals | 1625 | 49.7.34 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436617 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of Floris Soop'' | Rembrandt | 1654 | 49.7.35 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437395 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Man in a Red Cloak'' | Rembrandt | 1650s | 49.7.36 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437413 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Christ with a Staff'' | Rembrandt | 1661 | 49.7.37 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437407 MET] |- | center|128px | ''The Curious'' | Gerard ter Borch | 1660 | 49.7.38 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435714 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of a Young Boy'' | Sébastien Bourdon | 1700s | 49.7.39 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435757 MET] |- | center|128px | ''A Young Woman Reading'' | Han van Meegeren | 1926s | 49.7.40 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437882 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Don Manuel Osorio de Zúñiga'' | Francisco Goya | 1787 | 49.7.41 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436545 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of a Man'' | Diego Velázquez | 1630s | 49.7.42 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437874 MET] |- | center|128px | ''María Teresa (1638–1683), Infanta of Spain'' | Diego Velázquez | 1651 | 49.7.43 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437870 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Charles de Cossé (1506–1563), Comte de Brissac'' | Corneille de Lyon | 1600s | 49.7.44 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435946 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Portrait of a Man with a Black-Plumed Hat'' | Corneille de Lyon | 1535 | 49.7.45 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435956 MET] |- | center|128px | ''The Interrupted Sleep'' | François Boucher | 1750 | 49.7.46 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435738 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Marie Rinteau, called Mademoiselle de Verrières'' | François-Hubert Drouais | 1761 | 49.7.47 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436214 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Boy with a Black Spaniel'' | François-Hubert Drouais | | 49.7.48 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436217 MET] |- | center|128px | ''The Love Letter'' | Jean-Honoré Fragonard | 1770s | 49.7.49 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436322 MET] |- | center|128px | ''The Cascade'' | Jean-Honoré Fragonard | | 49.7.50 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436319 MET] |- | center|128px | ''A Shaded Avenue'' | Jean-Honoré Fragonard | | 49.7.51 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436324 MET] |- | center|128px | ''The Fair at Bezons'' | Jean-Baptiste Pater | | 49.7.52 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437257 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Alexandre Charles Emmanuel de Crussol-Florensac (1743–1815)'' | Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun | 1787 | 49.7.53 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437899 MET] |- | center|128px | ''The French Comedians'' | Antoine Watteau | | 49.7.54 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437925 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Queen Charlotte'' | Thomas Gainsborough | | 49.7.55 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436432 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Anne Elizabeth Cholmley (1769–1788), Later Lady Mulgrave'' | Gainsborough Dupont | | 49.7.56 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436239 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Lady Elizabeth Hamilton (1753–1797), Countess of Derby'' | George Romney | | 49.7.57 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437500 MET] |- | center|128px | ''Henri d'Albret (1503–55), King of Navarre'' | enamels highlighted in The MET collection | 1556 | 49.7.108 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/209063 MET] |- | | ''Jules Semon Bache'' | Jo Davidson | 1936 | 49.7.120 | [http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/488318 MET] |}
== References == {{reflist|30em}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bache, Jules}} Category:1861 births Category:1944 deaths Category:American art collectors Category:Bankers from New York City Category:American financiers Category:American people of German-Jewish descent Category:Philanthropists from New York (state) Category:Burials at Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx, New York) Category:Businesspeople from New York City Category:Jewish art collectors Category:1920 United States presidential electors