Franz Ruhmann

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Franz Ruhmann (born April 19, 1890 ; † July 1946 ) was an Austrian paper manufacturer and collector. He built up the Franz Ruhmann collection , a glass and porcelain collection that became world-famous.

Life

Ruhmann was born into the industrialist family Ruhmann in 1890 as the second eldest of the four sons of Clementine Ruhmann-Koessler and Moritz Ruhmann. In World War I he served as his brothers as a reserve officer and received awards for his bravery. Together with his two younger brothers Alfred and Karl , Franz Ruhmann joined the family-owned company Guggenbacher Maschinenpapier-Fabrik Adolf Ruhmann after the end of the war . From the 1930s, he and his brothers took over and managed the family business.

At that time, his glass collection, which he had built up since his youth with the active support of his self-employed artist mother Clementine Ruhmann-Koessler, had already grown to over 500 exhibits. Leo Grünbaum's collection of glasses had already been recognized in the Neue Freie Presse on November 24, 1922 on the occasion of the Vienna Glass Exhibition. The art historian Leopold Ruprecht also dealt with 19th century glasses in the Franz Ruhmann Collection in Vienna in 1927. Until 1938, glasses in his collection were repeatedly quoted around the world. He was particularly interested in his numerous hard-won Kothgasser glasses.

After the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in March 1938, the Ruhmann brothers were under pressure from the linearization to "sell" their Group Dr. Adolf Santner forced.

Part of the contract regarding the "sale" of the " Guggenbacher Maschinenpapier-Fabrik Adolf Ruhmann " group of companies included the transfer of the glass collection and the three brothers out of the country to Zagreb , where they lived from 1940 to 1941. Contrary to all agreements, Franz Ruhmann's glass collection, which at the time comprised more than 650 valuable exhibits, was withheld and partly auctioned at Dorotheum or reserved for the planned Führer Museum in Linz or "sold" to other museums.

In April 1941 the German invasion of Yugoslavia took place and the Ruhmann brothers fled to Dalmatia . The now largely destitute brothers were able to make their way to Italian-occupied Dubrovnik and then to Spalato Split . Karl Ruhmann fled to Switzerland in 1943; Franz stayed with Alfred initially in Dalmatia. Shortly after the end of the war, Franz Ruhmann died in July 1946 at the age of 56 under unknown circumstances. He is buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery.

Parts of his glass collection were returned to his heirs after 1945. In memory of the great glass collector Franz Ruhmann, one of his heirs, his brother Karl Ruhmann, presented around a dozen precious glasses to the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna.

literature

  • Leopold Ruprecht: The glasses of the 19th century in the Franz Ruhmann collection in Vienna. In: Belvedere. Vol. 11, October 1927, ISSN  0258-364X , pp. 118-121, (also special print).
  • Ignaz Schlosser: Some Diamond-Engraved Glasses from the Ruhmann Collection. In: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs. Vol. 70, No. 410, 1937, ISSN  0007-6287 , pp. 246-253, digitized .
  • Wolfgang Born: Five Centuries of Glass. The Franz Ruhmann Collection at Vienna I. and II. In: The Connoisseur. 1938, ZDB -ID 215961-2 , pp. 10-14, 121-125.
  • Ignaz Schlosser: Fates of a Viennese Private Collection. The Franz Ruhmann glass collection. In: Old and Modern Art. Vol. 6, No. 51, October 1961, ISSN  0002-6565 , pp. 12-15, digitized .
  • Monika Binder-Krieglstein: Franz Ruhmann, Vienna. Research report 1999. In: Karin Leitner-Ruhe, Gudrun Danzer, Monika Binder-Krieglstein (eds.): Restitution report 1999–2010. Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz 2010, ISBN 978-3-902241-55-9 , pp. 187–188, digitized version (PDF; 5.26 MB) .
  • Sophie Lillie : What once was. Handbook of the expropriated art collections of Vienna (= library of robbery. Vol. 8). Czernin, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-7076-0049-1 , pp. 1136–1169.
  • Walter Spiegl : Kothgasser & Co. II. Opinions and analyzes on the complex topic of "Kothgasser glasses". Walter Spiegl, sl 2002, 2005, 2011, online .
  • Bundesdenkmal-Amt Vienna: box 44/4 - documents on the whereabouts of Franz Ruhmann's glass and porcelain collection from 1938 to 1953. Vienna, Hofburg - Batthiany-Stiege, vidi 2012.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lost Art database (accessed on February 23, 2016).
  2. ↑ Sophie Lillie: What Once Was. Handbook of the expropriated art collections of Vienna. Czernin, Vienna 1999, pp. 1136–1169.
personal data
SURNAME Ruhmann, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian collector and manufacturer
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1890
DATE OF DEATH July 1946