Mrs. Christian R. Holmes

Mrs. Christian R. Holmes 1871–1941 Collector and Philanthropist.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Bettie Holmes was the daughter of Charles Louis Fleischmann (1835–1897), a food manufacturer and founder of the Fleischmann Yeast Company.

His commercially produced yeast allowed bread to be mass-produced. With her inherited wealth, Bettie collected works of art, particularly Chinese art, and supported many charitable causes and institutions, including the New York Philharmonic Symphony Society and the Metropolitan Opera. She reportedly donated $20 million during her lifetime.

She married Danish émigré Dr. Christian Ramus Holmes (1858–1920), an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist, in 1892.

In 1903 Christian Holmes founded the Cincinnati General Hospital. After her husband’s death, Mrs. Holmes established the Christian R. Holmes Memorial Hospital in 1929 and the Christian R. Holmes Foundation. In 1929 Mrs. Holmes moved to “The Chimneys,” a mansion at Sands Point on Long Island, New York, that provided a fitting setting for her growing art collection. In addition to forming an outstanding Chinese collection that included ceramics, jades, and bronzes, she lent objects to overseas exhibitions, such as the 1929 Chinese Art Exhibition in Berlin and the International Exhibition of Chinese Art held at the Royal Academy in London in 1935 and 1936. C. F. Yau, the manager of the New York branch of Tonying and Company, published a portfolio of her collection of bronzes, possibly as a promotional publication, following her death in 1941. Most of her Chinese collection was sold in 1942, with ex-Holmes objects finding a home in museum collections worldwide.