Guillermo de Osma y Scull

Guillermo Joaquín de Osma y Scull, Count of Valencia de Don Juan (24 January 1853 – 1922) was a Spanish diplomat, politician and art patron. Born in Cuba and educated at the Sorbonne and the University of Oxford, he served twice as Spain's Minister of Finance and as president of the Council of State. He was the first president of the Board of Trustees of the Alhambra, a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.

A prominent Hispanist and patron of scholarship, he founded with his wife Adelaida Crooke y Guzmán, the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan in Madrid and endowed the De Osma Studentship at the University of Oxford, where he had been the first Spaniard to study following the Universities Tests Act 1871.

Early life and education Osma was born to Juan Ignacio de Osma Ramírez de Arellano and Emilia Rosa Scull y Andouin on 24 January 1853 in Havana, then part of the Captaincy General of Cuba, into a family of statesmen with transatlantic connections. matriculating at Pembroke College on 27 May 1871 at the age of eighteen. He graduated BA in 1874 and proceeded to MA in 1879. During this period, he was attached to the Spanish Embassy in Paris. He obtained a first-class degree in historia moderna (modern history). In 1906, Osma was elected to the Real Academia de Ciencias Morales y Políticas, where he delivered his formal reception address on economic policy.

From 1919 until his death, Osma was a member of the Senate of Spain. His career also received international recognition, notably through his award of the Legion of Honour by France.

Osma maintained close intellectual ties with American scholar and collector Archer Milton Huntington, with whom he corresponded primarily in English. A member of the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, he developed a particular scholarly interest in decorative arts, including ceramics, ivories, textiles and metalwork.

Osma founded with his wife, Adelaida Crooke y Guzmán, daughter of the 24th Countess of Valencia de Don Juan, Adelaida's father, Juan Bautista Crooke y Navarrot, was a scholar and archaeologist, a member of the Royal Academy of History, and later director of the Royal Armoury of Madrid.