Gertrud Loew

Gertrud Löw, around 1902

Gustav Klimt: Gertha Löw , 1902

Gertrud Franziska Sophie Löw or Loew (born November 16, 1883 in Vienna ; died March 1964 , Santa Clara County , California ), also with the first name Gert (h) a and the name of her second husband, Felsöványi , was cited in 1902 painted by Gustav Klimt on behalf of her father Anton Löw.

Life

The physician Anton Löw (1847–1907) ran a hydropathic facility in Purkersdorf , a suburb of Vienna, around the 1880s on the site on which the Purkersdorf sanatorium, which has gone down in architectural history , was built. He was married to Sophie Franziska Unger († 1933, 79 years old).

In 1902, when Klimt was painting his daughter, Löw was listed in Lehmann's general housing advertisement for Vienna as the owner of Prussian, Russian, Danish, Serbian, Romanian and Japanese awards. At that time he lived with his family in the 9th district of Vienna in Pelikangasse, running between Alser Strasse and the General Hospital of the City of Vienna , at number 7. Around the corner , in Mariannengasse, which crosses Pelikangasse, Löw at number 20 has been running the Viennese since 1882 Sanatorium Dr. Anton Loew , the basis of his family's wealth. Josef Kainz , Gustav Mahler , Victor Adler and Alexander Girardi later died in the sanatorium . The sanatorium was founded by Gerta's grandfather Heinrich Löw in 1859 and moved to Mariannengasse in 1882. After her father's death, Gerta Eisler von Terramare was born. Löw main shareholder of the company. In 1938 the sanatorium had to be closed after the Nazi regime came to power.

Gerta's first marriage from 1903 to Johann ( Hans ) Arthur Eisler von Terramare (1878–1938), who ran a canning factory with his brother in Vienna and lived in Vienna 1., Schottengasse 10 . Both daughter Gertrude (born 1903) died at the age of two. For Gertas and Hans' household, Kolo Moser created a home furnishings , about which Berta Zuckerkandl reported in detail in 1904, without naming the client. (The clients were first mentioned in 2007 at a Kolo Moser exhibition in the Leopold Museum Vienna.) As Olga Kronsteiner summarized in 2015, a sliding table is now in the MAK in Vienna, a bedroom box in the Leopold Museum, and another is privately owned.

In 1911 Gerta Eisler von Terramare appeared again in Lehmann 's general apartment advertisement for Vienna in the apartment of her childhood on Pelikangasse; in 1919 she was still registered there with the family name of her first marriage.

In his second marriage, Gerta Löw was married from 1912 to Elemér Felsöványi de Felsö-Vány (1882-1923, in the USA: Felsovanyi), who brought two children into his second marriage, and had a daughter and two sons with him, including hers Heirs to Anthony Stephen Felsöványi or Felsovanyi (Vienna 1914–2013 Palo Alto , Santa Clara, California). Elemér was registered with Gerta in Pelikangasse from February 1913. He died in 1923. Gerta was still living there in 1938 and was no longer listed in the Lehmann 1939 edition. Immediately before the forced departure, Sophie Lillie gave Vienna 1st, Freyung 6 ( Schottenstift ) as Gerta's home address .

Two Waldmüller portraits, depicting Magdalena and Johann Werner, placed in custody by Gertrud Felsöványi in 1938 at the Vienna Art Gallery Wolfrum , were sold by the gallery to what is now the Austrian Gallery Belvedere shortly after the owner fled in 1939 ; the return was refused in 1952 and 2001.

Klimt

Gertrud Felsöványi's portrait and five Klimt drawings, which the Felsöványi heirs - but not for free! - according to oral information from her son Anthony, she owned them until she emigrated in 1939. (In contrast to the daughters of Hermine Gallia portrayed by Klimt, who emigrated in autumn 1938 , she could not declare her Klimt portrait as moving goods and take it with her.) Later these works of art were passed on to Klimt's son Gustav Ucicky without her consent , who left them to his widow Ursula . Efforts by Anthony Felsöványi to get his mother's portrait back were unsuccessful.

In 2013 Ursula Ucicky brought the painting and some other works by Klimt to a Klimt Foundation she had recently established; on the portrait of Gertrud Löw was commissioned according to the Provenance Research Foundation . This was completed in April 2014, and the research results were forwarded to a committee chaired by Clemens Jabloner . In September 2014, the foundation announced that the commissioned experts had determined that the painting would have to be returned to the Felsöványi family if it were in state ownership.

The foundation declared that it would work with the Felsöványi heirs to find a just and fair solution . We will try to preserve the image for Austria (Foundation Board Member Peter Weinhäupl). You have the money for a financial solution.

The picture was auctioned on June 24, 2015 at Sotheby in London for 22 million pounds (about 34.7 million euros); the proceeds, about 31 million euros net, are to be split 1: 1 between Ucicky's foundation and the Felsöványi heirs. No information was known about the private collector who arranged for a room bidder to purchase the picture. Ucicky's foundation is reportedly asking for money for the five drawings that the family is supposed to get back.

Web links

Commons : Gertrud Löw  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Entry on the Purkersdorf website online
2. ↑ Wilhelm Urbanek, Andreas Reisenbauer, Stefan Winterstein, District Museum Alsergrund: Historischer Bezirksführer ( Memento of the original of July 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ^ Koloman Moser , in: Decorative art, illustrated magazine for applied arts , Volume 12, 1903/1904, Munich 1904, p. 329 ff.
4. ↑ Olga Kronsteiner: Wohnen anno 1903 , in: Der Standard daily newspaper , Vienna, February 21, 2015, supplement album , p. A7, with illustrations of various objects
5. ↑ Registration research by Olga Kronsteiner, 2015
6. ^ Sophie Lillie: see literature, p. 358
7. ↑ Olga Kronsteiner: Dry run on the Attersee , website of the daily newspaper Der Standard , Vienna, dated November 8, 2013
8. ↑ Olga Kronsteiner: The other definition of beautiful , in: Daily newspaper Der Standard , Vienna, June 27, 2015, supplement album , p. A7, and on the website of the paper
9. ↑ Olga Kronsteiner: Causa Felsövanyi: Fragrant poetry in the reading corner , in: Der Standard newspaper , Vienna, October 19-20, 2013, supplement album , and website of the paper from October 18, 2013
10. ^ Press release of the foundation founded by Ursula Ucicky on October 23, 2013
11. ^ Research into the "Portrait of Gertrud Loew" completed. In: kurier.at. April 11, 2014, accessed December 25, 2017 . 
12. ↑ Klimt restitution case , in: Falter weekly newspaper , No. 38/2014, September 17, 2014, p. 38
13. ↑ Klimt Foundation seeks agreement , report on the website of the daily newspaper Der Standard , Vienna, September 10, 2014
14. ↑ Olga Kronsteiner: Lucrative haggling over Gertrude , in: Der Standard newspaper , Vienna, June 26, 2015, p. 26
15. ↑ Message from June 25, 2015 on the website of ORF, the Austrian state broadcaster

literature

• Sophie Lillie: Was once - Handbook of expropriated art collections in Vienna , Czernin Verlag, Vienna 2003, ISBN 978-3-7076-0049-0 , pp. 356 ff., Biography of Gertrud Felsövanyi, owner of the sanatorium ; reproduced on the website of the law firm Burris, Schoenberg & Walden, LLP, in Los Angeles, USA ( online , PDF; 22.6 MB)