Joseph Florimond Loubat

Joseph Florimond Loubat
Joseph Loubat, ca 1893
Born	(1831-01-21)January 21, 1831 New York City
Died	March 1, 1927(1927-03-01) (aged 96)
Nationality	United States
Education	University of Paris
Occupation	philanthropist
Title	Duc de Loubat

Joseph Florimond Loubat (January 21, 1831 – March 1, 1927) was a French and American bibliophile, antiquarian, sportsman, and philanthropist. He was ennobled as Duc de Loubat by Pope Leo XIII in 1893.

Loubat was born in New York City to Alphonse Loubat and Susan Gaillard Loubat. His father was a French inventor and businessman who was engaged in transport infrastructure development in New York City and Paris. Joseph Loubat studied at Heidelberg University and joined the Corps Saxo-Borussia. He was graduated from the University of Paris in 1847, and received a doctorate in law from the University of Jena in 1869.

In 1866, he accompanied Gustavus Fox as one of his secretaries during the Assistant Secretary of State for the Navy Fox's diplomatic mission to Russia.

Loubat became involved with the organization of the 1867 World Exposition.

After traveling extensively in Europe, and dividing the time of his life between the Old and New Worlds, he finally settled in Paris where he died in 1927. He rests at Passy Cemetery.

Loubat was a philanthropist who gave in 1898 Columbia University a gift of $1.1 million in property, and later gave Columbia money to fund the Loubat Prize. He also endowed chairs at several universities across Europe and the United States, including Columbia. He donated a statue of Pope Leo XIII to The Catholic University of America in 1891.

Loubat contributed monetary funds towards the founding of the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro and Musée de l'Homme in Paris. Loubat also donated to the American Museum of Natural History a large collection of Mexican archaeological artifacts assembled on his behalf by Edward Seler in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico; a series of casts of the original Cotzumalhuapa sculptures from the ruins of Santa Lucía Cotzumalguapa, Guatemala, kept in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin; a photographic copy of the "Codex Legislatif," an ancient Aztec codex, preserved in the Library of the Chamber of Deputies, Paris; and a facsimile of the "Codex Vaticanus, No. 3773," an ancient Aztec book preserved in the Vatican Library, Rome.