[[File:Elgin Marbles British Museum.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Elgin Marbles]] controversially on display in the Duveen Gallery of the British Museum]]
Duveen quickly became enormously wealthy and made many philanthropic donations. He donated paintings to British galleries and gave considerable sums to repair and expand several galleries and museums. Amongst other things, he built the Duveen Gallery of the [[British Museum]] to house the [[Elgin Marbles]], whose ownership is the subject of international controversy, and funded a major extension of the [[Tate Britain|Tate Gallery]]. The Duveen Gallery also provides the setting for official Museum receptions over wine and cheese, for which the Marbles provide a nice backdrop. It was in the Duveen Gallery that the Elgin Marbles were damaged in a series of incidents, including one in 1961 when two schoolboys knocked off a part of a [[centaur]]'s leg.<ref name="telegraph">Hastings, Chris. [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1490023/Revealed-how-rowdy-schoolboys-knocked-a-leg-off-one-of-the-Elgin-Marbles.html Revealed: how rowdy schoolboys knocked a leg off one of the Elgin Marbles] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160407143411/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1490023/Revealed-how-rowdy-schoolboys-knocked-a-leg-off-one-of-the-Elgin-Marbles.html |date=7 April 2016}}, ''The Daily Telegraph'', 15 May 2005. Retrieved 6 March 2010.</ref> The dark Duveen Gallery is in marked contrast with the natural sunlight characteristic of [[Athens]], and the Gallery's preceived inappropriateness has been advanced as an argument in favour of the restitution of the Marbles to Greece, where they can be reunited with the rest of the monument and displayed in the [[Acropolis Museum]], in the natural sunlight of Athens, aligned with and in full view of the [[Parthenon]].<ref name=":0">{{cite web|url=http://www.arcspace.com/architects/Tschumi/|title=Bernard Tschumi Architects|work=arcspace.com|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928051614/http://www.arcspace.com/architects/Tschumi/|archive-date=28 September 2007|df=dmy-all}}</ref>
For his philanthropy, he was knighted in 1919, made a '''Baronet''' of Millbank in the City of Westminster in 1927<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=33249 |date=18 February 1927 |page=1111 }}</ref> and raised to the peerage as '''Baron Duveen''' of Millbank in the City of Westminster on 3 February 1933.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=33909 |date=7 February 1933 |page=825 }}</ref>
