The invisible collection

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The invisible collection is a novella by Stefan Zweig from 1927.

action

The renowned Berlin art antiquarian R. is looking for an old customer out of purely professional curiosity "in one of the most impossible provincial towns in Saxony". The veteran by the first name Herwarth, a forest and economy councilor a. D., Lieutenant ret. D. and bearer of the Iron Cross, first class, had stopped his regular purchases of the “most wonderful sheets of Rembrandt next to engravings by Dürer and Mantegna ” since the beginning of the war . The antiquarian did not notice a sale of the 27 portfolios. So R. looks expectantly to the "greatest collector in Germany". He made it to Herwarth without any problems. The old man is blind. All 27 folders are available. Herwarth proudly presents the sheets, but they are all empty. Wife and daughter Annemarie squandered the treasures piece by piece during the economically difficult 1920s and thus kept the large family afloat with great difficulty. Antiquarian R., shortly before the "presentation" by the insecure two women about their deception, plays along. At Herwarth's generous offer, R. also promises to manage his looted portfolios after the great collector's death.

Rembrandt (1659): Jupiter and Antiope

shape

The art antiquarian tells the story to the narrator on a train journey "two stations behind Dresden".

The text reaches its peak when the blind man becomes uncertain once during the “presentation”: “... while his nervous clairvoyant finger traced the line of the impression, lovingly tracing it, but without the sharpened tactile nerves that indentation on the found foreign leaves. Suddenly a shadow went over his forehead ... isn't that the » Antiope «?

reception

Bauer mentions references to Stefan Zweig's vita - the passion for collecting that he pursued in his Salzburg villa on the Kapuzinerberg from 1919 to 1934.

Film adaptations

The Internet Movie Database lists two black and white films of about half an hour for German (premiered August 30, 1953) and Belgian television (premiered September 6, 1966). In the German film by Hanns Farenburg , Ernst Stahl-Nachbaur play Herwarth, Käthe Haack his wife and Hermann Lenschau the antiquarian R.

literature

Used edition

  • Stefan Zweig: The invisible collection. An episode from German inflation . In: Novellas . Vol. 1, pp. 67-86. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1986 (3rd edition), without ISBN, licensor: S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, (Copyright 1946, Bermann-Fischer Verlag AB, Stockholm)

Other issues

  • Stefan Zweig: The invisible collection. An episode from German inflation. A. Scholem for the Berlin Bibliophile Evening, 1927. 22 pages, paperback

Secondary literature

  • Donald Prater (Ed.), Volker Michels (Ed.): Stefan Zweig. Life and work in the picture. Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, Leipzig 1984, without ISBN, licensor: Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, copyright 1981, 335 pages
  • Arnold Bauer: Stefan Zweig . Morgenbuch Verlag Volker Spiess, Berlin 1996 (vol. 21 of the series “Heads of the 20th Century”), ISBN 3-371-00401-5

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edition used, p. 287
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 82, 14. Zvo
  3. ↑ Bauer, pp. 47-48
  4. ↑ see also Prater, Michels, pp. 136, 137, 140 and 141
  5. ↑ The invisible collection in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  6. ↑ De onzichtbare verzameling in the Internet Movie Database (English)