Joseph Raphael De Lamar Tiffany's most important patron was born in Amsterdam, Holland, September 2, 1843. His father, a banker in Amsterdam, died when he was six years of age, and the lad in love of adventure went aboard a Dutch vessel that plied to the West Indies. When the young stowaway was discovered, he was put to work as assistant to the cook without wages.

He worked as a seaman until he was twenty, when he became master of a ship, and three years later received a captain's command. He visited almost every port in the world and acquired a wonderful education through his observations in foreign countries. 

In 1878 he came to New York, and when the gold fever struck Leadville, Colorado, he went West and bought several claims, and the same year took a private course in chemistry and metallurgy under a professor from Chicago University. He returned to the mining fields and purchased the Terrible lead mine in Custer County, Colorado, which he sold to the Omaha & Grant Smelting and Refining Company at a handsome profit. He then obtained control of a mountain six miles west of Silver City, Idaho. Many large veins of gold and silver were discovered on the property and he set up De Lamar Mining company,
 

In 1891 he served as State Senator in the first Legislature of Idaho, and occupied the Chairmanship on Finance, Railroads and Constitutional Amendments. He was offered the highest honours in the gift of the State, but declined to continue in politics and moved to New York.
He was known on Wall Street as "the man of mystery." He never talked much, his intimate friends say, but was uniformly successful in his transactions. He made millions out of his deal in the Nipissing Gold Mine in 1906.
[edit]Marriage, Family and Death

Joseph Raphael De Lamar House, at the corner at Madison Avenue and 37th Street
He married, May 8, 1893, Nellie Virginia Sands, a direct descendant of John Quincy Adams, and had one daughter, Alice A. De Lamar. Captain De Lamar was a member of the Lotus, and the New York Yacht, Larchmont and Columbia Yacht Clubs. He was the owner of the yacht "May" and "Sagitta," the fastest power boat on the Sound. He was a great believer in aerial navigation and devoted considerable time to the study of the subject.
He was also an art connoisseur, a collector of fine paintings, statuary and other art objects. He was also a great lover of music, but his greatest delight was in the gathering of rare plants and flowers, of which he possessed a wonderful collection. He left a large sum to the Harvard University Medical School, Johns Hopkins University, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University for research into the causes of disease and for the promulgation through lectures, publications, and otherwise of the principles of correct living.
His house on Madison Avenue is a New York landmark building today. De lamar commissioned louis Comfort Tiffany to build him many extraordinary stained glass Tiffany windows including the famous "Bathers".
        De Lamar died December 1, 1918. His life was full of well directed energy and splendid achievement. A man of large vision, nothing was too vast for him to undertake to perform.
Joseph and Alice De Lamar's lives were the subject of the In Search of... season 4 episode,"The Missing Heirs.".[6]