James Simon (17 September 185123 May 1932) was a German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 entrepreneur, philanthropist and patron of the arts during the Wilhelmine

Wilhelmine

Wilhelmine is a term for the period of German history, also known as the German Empire. The term Wilhelmine Germany refers to the period running from the proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Kaiser at Versailles in 1871 to the abdication of his grandson Wilhelm II in 1918.Although the father of...

 period. He donated most of his significant collections to the Berlin State Museums

Berlin State Museums

The Berlin State Museums, in German Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, are a group of museums in Berlin, Germany overseen by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and funded by the German federal government in collaboration with Germany's federal states...

, including the famous Nefertiti bust

Nefertiti Bust

The Nefertiti Bust is a 3300-year-old painted limestone bust of Nefertiti, the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten and is one of the most copied works of ancient Egypt. Due to the bust, Nefertiti has become one of the most famous women from the ancient world as well as an icon of...

.

Born in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 the son of a well-off Jewish cotton merchant, Simon attended the Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster

Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster

The Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster is the oldest Gymnasium in Berlin and continues to this day as the Evangelisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster. It is a private school with a humanistic profile and known as one of the most prestigious schools in Germany...

 and received a six-month traineeship at Bradford

Bradford

Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...

, then a centre of textile manufacture, before he became a partner with his father in 1876. Though a reserved man, he played an influential role in the German society, especially by his participation at a regular roundtable with Emperor Wilhelm II. Simon and other invitees like Albert Ballin

Albert Ballin

Albert Ballin was a German businessman. He was born into a modest Jewish family of Hamburg with origins in Denmark.- Business :...

 and Carl Fürstenberg

Carl Fürstenberg

Carl Fürstenberg was one of the most prominent German bankers of the late nineteenth and early twenteeth century, and was responsible for the revival of the German mining industry during his era....

 as well as Emil

Emil Rathenau

Emil Moritz Rathenau was a German entrepreneur and industrialist, a leading figure in the early European electrical industry.- Biography :...

 and Walther Rathenau

Walther Rathenau

Walther Rathenau was a German Jewish industrialist, politician, writer, and statesman who served as Foreign Minister of Germany during the Weimar Republic...

 discussed economic life and tried to give the emperor an understanding of a Jewish perspective on social issues. Their close relationship with the erratic ruler was seen critical by Zionist

Zionism

Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

 contemporaries and the circle's participants were later mocked as the "Emperor's Jews" (Kaiserjuden) by Chaim Weizmann

Chaim Weizmann

Chaim Azriel Weizmann, , was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952....

.

Simon especially shared an interest for archaeology with the Wilhelm II and in 1898 was one of the founders of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft

Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft

The Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft is a Eingetragener Verein - a registered voluntary association - based at Berlin in Germany....

 in collaboration with Wilhelm von Bode

Wilhelm von Bode

Wilhelm von Bode was a German art historian and curator. Born Arnold William Bode in Calvörde, he was ennobled in 1913...

, and in 1901 the emperor himself assumed the auspices. In 1911 Simon provided the financing of Ludwig Borchardt

Ludwig Borchardt

Ludwig Borchardt was a German Egyptologist who was born in Berlin.-Life:Borchardt initially studied Architecture and later Egyptology under Adolf Erman. In 1895 he journeyed to Cairo and produced, with Gaston Maspero, the Catalogue of the Egyptian Museum...

's excavations at Pharao Akhenaten

Akhenaten

Akhenaten also spelled Echnaton,Ikhnaton,and Khuenaten;meaning "living spirit of Aten") known before the fifth year of his reign as Amenhotep IV , was a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt who ruled for 17 years and died perhaps in 1336 BC or 1334 BC...

's city in Amarna

Amarna

Amarna is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site that represents the remains of the capital city newly–established and built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty , and abandoned shortly afterwards...

, whereafter large parts of the found artefacts including the busts of Nefertiti

Nefertiti

Nefertiti was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a religious revolution, in which they started to worship one god only...

 and Tiye

Tiye

Tiye was the daughter of Yuya and Tjuyu . She became the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III....

 passed into his ownership, according to a – still disputed – 1913 partition treaty with the Egyptian Département des antiquités

Supreme Council of Antiquities

The Supreme Council of Antiquities is the branch of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture responsible for the conservation, protection and regulation of all antiquities and archaeological excavations in Egypt...

 under Gaston Maspero

Gaston Maspero

Gaston Camille Charles Maspero was a French Egyptologist.-Life:Gaston Maspero was born in Paris to parents of Lombard origin. While at school he showed a special taste for history, and by the age of fourteen he was already interested in hieroglyphic writing...

. He added them to his private collections at his villa on Tiergartenstraße No. 15a, of which in his later years he dedicated various parts as permanent loans for public display, at first to the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum

Bode Museum

The Bode Museum is one of the group of museums on the Museum Island in Berlin, Germany; it is a historically preserved building. The museum was designed by architect Ernst von Ihne and completed in 1904...

 opened in 1904, the major donations to the Egyptian Museum

Egyptian Museum of Berlin

The Egyptian Museum of Berlin is home to one of the world's most important collections of Ancient Egyptian artifacts.The collection is part of the Neues Museum.-History:...

 followed in 1920.

James Simon died in Berlin and is buried at the Jewish cemetery on Schönhauser Allee in Prenzlauer Berg

Prenzlauer Berg

Prenzlauer Berg is a locality of Berlin, in the borough of Pankow.Until 2001, Prenzlauer Berg was a borough of Berlin; in that year it was included in the borough of Pankow....

. Wilhelm II sent a wreath from his Dutch exile.

External links

• James Simon Foundation
• James Simon memorial
• "Das Herrenzimmer als Museumsraum" in Tagesspiegel, 18 October 2006