Joseph V. Noble

Joseph V. Noble (April 3, 1920 – September 22, 2007) was an American museum administrator, antiquities collector, and self-trained ceramic archaeologist.

pull the Museum up to the sky; it is my job to hold its feet on the ground. Between the two, we will stretch the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” (Noble, 1994).

Early life Joseph Veach Noble was born on April 3, 1920, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He pursued premedical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. While still in school, he began working as a cinematographer for De Frenes & Company, making documentary films. He briefly worked for Philco Corporation, one of the first television stations in Philadelphia, before enlisting in the United States Army where he served in the Signal Corps Photographic Center, attaining the position of Assistant Chief of the Camera Branch. During this time he developed an interest in and began collecting Greek vases and other antiquities. Noble, however, in a 1994 oral history interview described his change in title as “technical” and noted that his “duties were virtually the same.” He further made a positive statement about working with Hoving. Hoving later wrote that he wanted to lose Noble, but the latter's performance prevented him finding "a way to get rid of him." He also served as the President of the American Association of Museums from 1975 to 1978. In 1986, the Tampa Museum of Art acquired the Noble collection of Classical Antiquities. In 1970 sculptor Joseph Kiselewski created a brass medallion featuring Noble's profile. The medallion is in a collection housed in the American Heritage Bank in Browerville, Minnesota.

Publications An Inquiry into the Forgery of the Etruscan Terracotta Warriors in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dietrich von Bothmer and Joseph Veach Noble. Papers of the Metropolitan Museum of Art No. 11. January 1, 1961. The Techniques of Painted Attic Pottery. Joseph Veach Noble, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) Watson-Guptill Publications, 1965. "The Forgery of our Greek Bronze Horse": The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 26, no. 6 (February, 1968).