Joseph Longworth

Joseph Longworth (2 October 1813 – 29 December 1883) was an American lawyer, real-estate magnate, art collector, and philanthropist. A member of the wealthy Longworth family, he helped shape cultural life in Cincinnati for a generation. Longworth sold the parcel of land that would become Eden Park, including the land that would be used for the Cincinnati Art Museum. He also contributed to the construction of the museum and served as its first president. Longworth was the "prime mover" for the Art Academy of Cincinnati, arranging the movement of the school to Eden Park, planning its integration with the museum, and endowing it with $370,000. In 2013 the original Art Academy building was renamed the Longworth Wing of the Cincinnati Art Museum in his honor.

Personal life

Longworth was the only son of the wealthy real estate magnate and vintner Nicholas Longworth and his wife Susanna Howell (1786-1865). He was named for his uncle Joseph Longworth (1769-1838), who later died in the Steamer Pulaski disaster. He grew up in Cincinnati and was educated at Yale University.

On May 13, 1841, he married Anna "Annie" Maria Rives (10 October 1822 – 31 January 1862), the daughter of Landon Cabell Rives (1790-1870) and Anna Maria Towles (1795-1843). Until 1848 the family lived in the family estate "Belmont", which is now the Taft Museum of Art, until moving out to the Rookwood estate in present-day Hyde Park.

Longworth often opined that he would be remembered primarily as "the son of his father and the father of his son"; however, he may be better remembered today as the father of his daughter. In addition to his children, Longworth's descendants include the statesman Nicholas Longworth III, the writer and socialite Clara Longworth de Chambrun, and the French lawyer René de Chambrun. Longworth was the "prime mover" toward the Art Academy,

Longworth was also instrumental in the success of Rookwood Pottery, founded by his daughter Maria Longworth Storer. He purchased the first building for the company, a former schoolhouse, in a sheriff sale, and provided funds to cover the pottery's losses during its early years. Longworth facetiously remarked that he supported the pottery "to give employment to the idle rich." Storer named the pottery after her father's estate, which had been her childhood home.

Longworth supported other applied arts as well, commissioning the woodcarver Henry L. Fry and his son William H. Fry to carve furniture for his Rookwood estate in the 1850s. This included an elaborate mantelpiece with a grapevine design inspired by the vineyards that first made the Longworth family successful. The Frys' work was extremely influential in Cincinnati, inspiring a trend of art furniture inspired by the aesthetic movement.

Over the years Longworth purchased many works by Düsseldorf School painters through his intermediary Worthington Whittredge, especially landscapes by Andreas Achenbach and Lessing. One of his most important purchases, a portfolio of nearly 1000 drawings, was bequeathed to the Cincinnati Art Museum in 1882. Longworth also gifted the massive Benjamin West painting Laertes and Ophelia to the museum, which had been in his father's collection since 1830.

His private collection also included works by , Nicaise de Keyser, Hans Fredrik Gude, Ludwig Knaus, Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, Jusepe de Ribera, and .

Death and legacy

Longworth died on 29 December 1883 of an aneurysm; he had been in ill health for some time, compounded by grief over the early death of his son Landon Rives Longworth, who had died of pneumonia in 1879. He was buried in a private cemetery on the grounds of his Rookwood estate; in 1929 his remains were exhumed and reburied in Spring Grove Cemetery. Named in honor of Joseph Longworth, the Longworth Wing contains administrative offices on the first two floors and the Mary R. Schiff Library and Archives on the third floor.