Benjamin N. Duke

Benjamin N. Duke

Benjamin N. Duke, 1894, Oil on canvas, 36" x 50", by Norval H. Busey

Benjamin Newton Duke (1855-1929), son of Washington Duke, was a director of the American Tobacco Company, which was headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, and made many gifts to Trinity College, which was later renamed Duke University. Benjamin married Sarah P. Duke; they had one son, Angier, and one daughter, Mary [later Mary Duke Biddle]. In 1960, this portrait was transferred with three other Duke family portraits from Four Acres, Benjamin N. Duke's home in Durham. This portrait hangs behind the Public Services Desk in Lilly Library's Main Lobby. Currently not on display.

Norval H. Busey was born in 1845, in Christiansburg, Virginia. He studied painting with Bouguereau in Paris. Around 1871 he became a member of the Salmagundi Club in New York, an early important art club that held regular exhibitions and formed a collection. Busey also painted portraits of Mrs. Benjamin N. Duke, Master Angier B. Duke, and Miss Mary Duke, which hang in Lilly Library's Main Lobby, and The Reapers, which hangs in the south foyer on the second floor.

Busey, Norval H.