One trial for Julia Morgan involved having to contend with William Randolph Hearst’s rapidly accumulating purchases, as Julia’s longtime employee Walter Steilberg explained: “Miss Morgan had to deal not only with the visible client across the table from her, but also these other clients who were peddling antiques to Mr. Hearst from all over the world.” A lifelong art collector with widely eclectic interests, W.R. described himself as “like a dipsomaniac [drunkard] with a bottle.” When art dealers showed him things, he had to buy, and his timing was opportune.
In 1909, American export duties were lifted on art that was more than a century old. What began as a trickle of fine objects leaving Europe became a flood after 1918, when war-torn countries needed funds to rebuild, and long-held British fortunes were devoured by inheritance taxes. W.R. haunted New York’s art galleries and auction houses, maintaining the same high level of involvement in every art-buying decision that he displayed in every building decision. His possessions fitted so seamlessly into San Simeon’s architecture that it is easy to assume he had purchased everything prior to construction. In fact, he owned less than 5 percent of the hilltop’s approximately twenty thousand objects before 1919. Julia incorporated Hearst’s expanding collections into her constantly evolving design, while simultaneously maintaining the estate’s atmosphere of symmetry and balance. Her Beaux-Arts training proved the perfect preparation for this difficult endeavor.
Unlike most prominent American art collectors—including financier J.P. Morgan and industrialist Henry Clay Frick—W.R. specialized in the decorative arts (furniture, metalwork, pottery, and textiles) rather than concentrating on the fine arts of painting and sculpture. Hearst’s collections ranged widely in quality as well as in age, origin, and category, since he bought whatever appealed to him. He was particularly interested in antique ceilings, buying dozens of Spanish examples from the American art dealer Arthur Byne. Julia had known Arthur’s wife, Mildred, during her years in Paris, and her letters to the Bynes (who became permanent residents of Spain) were remarkable for the frankness with which she expressed her opinions. Julia clearly felt that W.R. was on the losing side in many of his transactions: “I think you will find you will have a very appreciative and interested client. He has been so thoroughly the victim of some of his dealers that he will, on his side, greatly appreciate real knowledge and fair treatment.”
Julia provided the Bynes with a…
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