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3 unusual facts about William Boyce Thompson


William Boyce

William Boyce Thompson (1869–1930), American mining engineer and financier

William Boyce Thompson

By the time of his death, Newmont Mining was one of the three largest mining companies in the world after Cecil Rhodes's De Beers and Sir Ernest Oppenheimer's Anglo American plc.

His portrait was painted by the Swiss-born American artist Adolfo Müller-Ury (1862-1947) about 1920-5, and was donated to the New York Chamber of Commerce around 1948/9 by the artist's friend, the soprano Jessica Dragonette (died 1980) who had acquired it from the artist's estate; she claimed in her autobiography 'Faith is a Song' (1951) that she offered it to Thompson's daughter who set a fee for the privilege of destroying the portrait.



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