Eduard Friedrich Weber (art collector)

Eduard F. Weber 1905

Eduard Friedrich Weber (born June 19, 1830 in Hamburg ; † September 19, 1907 there ) was a German entrepreneur , numismatist , art collector , patron of the arts and consul .

origin

Weber's family originally came from Bielefeld . His father David Friedrich Weber (1786–1868) founded the Woermann and Weber business in Bielefeld in 1811 together with the father of Carl Woermann , which dealt with the linen trade . In 1814 he moved to Hamburg and separated from his partner , who also moved to Hamburg. David Friedrich Weber founded a company that traded successfully with South America. Since 1814 his wife was Henriette Charlotte, born in Bielefeld. Nottebohm (1792–1886), a daughter of Abraham Nottebohm . Her daughter Clara Eleonore Friederike Weber (1818–1860) married Carl Woermann in 1837. The Hamburg Senator and First Mayor Hermann Anthony Cornelius Weber was also a son of DF Weber.

Life

Eduard Weber was born in Hamburg in 1830 as the ninth of eleven children of the merchant, commercial judge (1834) and "Royal Prussian Commerzienrathes " (1836) David Friedrich Weber. At the age of nine he went on a two-year trip to Italy with his parents and a sister. Even before the trip and back in Hamburg, he received private tuition from various teachers and then attended grammar school in Schwerin until 1847, where he graduated from underprima. After a commercial apprenticeship in Hamburg, Eduard Weber initially worked in England in 1849/1850. In 1852 he went to Valparaíso . Here he founded the import and export company Weber, Münchmeyer & Co. in 1856 , trading under the name Weber & Cia from 1860 . It should develop into one of the largest companies on the west coast of South America.

Returned to his native Hamburg in 1862, he built the on saltpetre specialized trading house Ed. F. Weber . In 1863 he married Mary Elizabeth Gossler (1845–1927), a daughter of the Hamburg merchant and banker Johann Heinrich Gossler . In addition to his business activities, Weber took on various honorary positions in Hamburg and was, among other things, head of the "Dutch poor fund" in 1877 and annual administrator. Also in 1877 he was appointed consul for the Hawaiian Islands, a position he took over from his father-in-law and held it until 1902. The office favored his business relationships with the Hawaiian Islands, which had existed since he worked in his father's company, consisting of plantations (coffee and rice) and other commercial ventures.

In the interests of their trade relations with Chile, Consul Weber and other well-known Hamburg entrepreneurs asked the Hamburg Senate and the Foreign Office several times to send German warships to Chile during the Saltpeter War and the civil war in Chile from 1879 to 1891 . They were supposed to safeguard German interests and the stagnating overseas trade that had led to great financial losses.

In addition to his real estate in Hamburg, Consul Weber was also the owner of large agricultural properties in Silesia. In the mid-1880s he had acquired the Radschütz, Irrsingen and Alexanderhof manors, later the Nistitz manor and in 1895 the neighboring Gurkau manor. The goods corresponded to a total of around 2,500 ha of land, of which part of the property was sold again in 1905. In addition to the goods, Weber acquired Wilhelmsburg Castle with the Nimmersath estate and ruins in 1888 , both in the Bolkenhain district in Silesia.

collection

Family burial site Consul Ed F Weber , Ohlsdorf cemetery

As one of the largest German art collectors of his time, Weber was the owner of the important art collection known under the name "Galerie Weber", which mainly contained old German, Dutch and Italian paintings. He also had an excellent coin collection (Greek, Roman and Hamburg coins). The approximately 370 works that were open to the public included works by Peter Paul Rubens , Rembrandt , Andrea Mantegna , Hans Holbein the Elder. Ä. , Albrecht Dürer and Lucas Cranach the Elder Ä. After 1907 parts of the collection could be transferred to the Hamburger Kunsthalle thanks to the initiative of Alfred Lichtwark . Weber had offered the entire picture gallery of the city of Hamburg for 2.5 million marks in a will, but the sale did not take place. In a Berlin auction in Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus in 1912 the remaining works were auctioned for a total of 4.4 million marks. His works of “new masters”, which were also available alongside the “old masters”, decorated the family home. They stayed with his widow and were also auctioned after her death in 1927. The family home was not only decorated with these works, Weber had the Weimar painters Franz Gustav Arndt and Hieronymus Christian Krohn decorated the dining room of his house with four oil paintings depicting the four seasons in 1877 .

family

The married couple Eduard Friedrich and Mary Elizabeth Weber had ten children who were born between 1865 and 1886. Two of the children died in childhood. The family lived in St. Georg , An der Alster 58 (49).

On the Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg is located in grid square area AA11 / AA12 (southwest Nordteich ) the family tomb "Consul Ed Weber F", designed by German sculptor Hans Dammann .

literature

• Julius von Pflugk-Harttung : Hamburg. Weber's collection of paintings. In: Repertory for Art History. Volume VIII, Verlag W. Spemann, Berlin and Stuttgart 1885, pp. 80–94 ( digitized version )
• Eduard Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer ; Oscar Louis Tesdorpf: Weber. In: Hamburg coats of arms and genealogies. Hamburg 1890, pp. 455–461 ( digitized version )
• Karl Woermann : Scientific directory of the older paintings of the Weber Gallery in Hamburg. Galerie Weber Hamburg (ed.), Hoffmann, Dresden 1892 ( digitized ).
• Jacob Hirsch (Ed.): Collection Consul Eduard Friedrich Weber †, Hamburg: Auction, First Section: Greek Coins. public auction, Monday, d. November 16, 1908 a. ff. days (catalog no. 21), Munich, 1908 ( digitized version ).
• Jacob Hirsch (Ed.): Consul Eduard Friedrich Weber † Collection, Hamburg: Auction, Second Section: Roman and Byzantine Coins, Addendum Greek Coins, Coin Weights, Numismatic Library. public auction, Monday, May 10, 1909 a. ff. days (catalog no. 24) ( digitized version ).
• Karl Woermann: Galerie Weber, Hamburg: Exhibition: Saturday 17th, Sunday 18th and Monday 19th February 1912; Auction: Tuesday 20th, Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd February 1912; with 15 etchings and 89 collotype plates. Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus, Berlin 1912 ( digitized version ).
• Carla Schmincke: Collector in Hamburg. The merchant and art lover consul Eduard Friedrich Weber (1830-1907). University of Hamburg, Department of Cultural History and Cultural Studies, dissertation 2003, Hamburg 2004 ( digitized version, PDF 24.5 MB ).

Web links

Commons : Eduard Friedrich Weber  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Eduard Friedrich Weber. In: Reading room: Linen patriciate Bielefeld. at motivsuche.info

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} See literature: Lorenz-Meyer; Tesdorpf: Weber. In: Hamburg coats of arms and genealogies. Pp. 455-461.
2. ^ Gallery Weber, Hamburg. Second part. Auctioned on February 28, 1928 in Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus. Catalog No. 1995, Berlin 1928
3. ↑ KW: Korrespondenz - Hamburg, June 1877. In: Kunstchronik , XII. Volume (1877), No. 41. July 19, 1877, pp. 653–655 , accessed on March 14, 2016 . 
4. ^ Verlag Hermanns Erben, Hamburg: Weber, Ed. F., Consul for the Kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands, merchant, business u. Consulat-Bureau Poststr. 20, living. St Georg, ad Alster 49. In: Hamburger Adressbuch 1877, part II. P. 519 , accessed on March 15, 2016 . 
5. ^ Verlag Hermanns Erben, Hamburg: Weber, Ed. F., Kaufm., Consul f. Hawaii, Business & Consulats-Bureau Ferdinand-Strasse 56, residential. an der Alster 58. In: Hamburg address book 1900, part III. P. 735 , accessed March 15, 2016 .