Heinrich Mau

Heinrich Mau (1843–1906), photograph around 1895

Memorial plaque Central-Theater and Heinrich Mau, Dresden, Prager Str. 7

Jakob Wilhelm Heinrich Mau (born February 18, 1843 in Dresden ; † August 22, 1906 there ) was a German jeweler , purveyor to the royal Saxon court and a Dresden theater entrepreneur.

Life

The Heinrich Maus family came from Dörnigheim in the Main Valley and opened their jewelry store in Dresden (Moritzstraße) in 1831. Heinrich Mau was born there in 1843. As reported, he had no sense for school, and the education in a home of the Moravian Brethren was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, his talents were imagination, a keen business acumen and a feeling for the signs of the times and the needs of customers. He learned his craft as a jeweler in his parents' business and began to develop his own pieces of jewelery with a high level of craftsmanship and artistic quality.

After the early death of both parents (1859 and 1863), he took over their company at the age of 20 and expanded it, especially after 1871, into a company operating throughout Germany for the manufacture of the finest silver goods and jewelry creations. Heinrich Mau received the inspiration for the ever new creations for the bourgeoisie, as well as for the German princely and royal houses, in Vienna, Paris, Berlin and London. The employees of his prosperous company often worked to the point of exhaustion to fulfill the delivery requests: Mau also wanted to outdo the rival court jeweler Elimeyer.

Equipped with a wealth of experience from his travels, he realized that Prager Strasse would become one of the first business addresses in Dresden. In 1888 he acquired the Victoria Hotel and had it replaced in 1891/92 by the Viktoria House , a residential and commercial building (architects William Lossow and Hermann Viehweger ). It became one of the first addresses in the royal seat. The studio and workshop rooms were set up on the fourth floor, and Heinrich Mau and his family lived on the third floor.

In keeping with the zeitgeist, Heinrich Mau succeeded in receiving several coveted titles during these years. Due to his work for German princely houses, he became court purveyor to the Duke of Saxony-Altenburg in 1882, purveyor to the court of Grand Ducal Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1891 , and finally in 1894 (alongside Moritz Elimeyer) a royal Saxon court jeweler . He also had the title of Imperial Chamber Jeweler .

At the beginning of the 1890s, a project took shape that was to implement his lifelong dream - his own entertainment theater: In 1896 Mau bought properties on Waisenhausstrasse and Prager Strasse and, with Lossow and Viehweger, began planning a luxurious ensemble of shopping mile, business premises, and more elegant Gastronomy and an operetta theater with 2000 seats. However, the license for this was initially refused by the authorities, as the Residenz Theater and the Nesmüller Summer Theater were considered sufficient. The theater was now conceived as a variety show with theater operations. The planning for this began in 1897.

The million dollar project brought Mau to the limits of his physical and financial capabilities, which he was able to overcome with the help of business friends and generous credit from the banking house Gebrüder Arnhold . In 1898 a nervous breakdown followed, followed by a long stay in Reginald H. Pierson's sanatorium “Lindenhof” in Coswig and a family stay in Switzerland.

The central object was the Central Theater , which cost around 7.5 million marks and for its opening on November 21, 1898, after a brilliant opening show, it was celebrated with ovations by the audience.

The project was transferred to the newly founded AG für Bauten on August 28, 1899, and Heinrich Mau's authorized officer, Karl Denzel, became the managing director. Heinrich Mau took over the chairmanship of the supervisory board. From there he also had an artistic influence on the program, contributing his international experience and, in favor of the theater, also many personal wishes and ideas that made the Central Theater a "first-rate attraction".

Diabetes was the cause of his early death at the age of 64.

personality

Heinrich Mau was married to Laura Rosalie Mau. Their son, Johannes Heinrich Mau, continued the jewelry business as Johannes H. Mau, Gold- und Silberwaren .

Heinrich Mau was popular and humble throughout his life. At the grave he was honored as a "benefactor and outstanding fellow citizen" and "simple and amiable man of artistic spirit". The wish that his name would remain “forever linked to the building history of Dresden” was not fulfilled: his buildings were destroyed in the air raids on Dresden in 1945, his name is almost forgotten today.

A memorial plaque for the Central Theater, its luxurious passages and in memory of the builder Heinrich Mau was only inaugurated in June 2017 at the location of the former entrance from Prager Str. 7 (today roughly the entrance to the P&C department store ).

literature

• Andreas Schwarze: Metropolis of pleasure - musical folk theater in Dresden from 1844 until today . Dresden: SAXO'Phon 2016. ISBN 978-3-943444-59-9 . Pp. 55–57 ( The self-made millionaire and art ).

Web links

• Heinrich Mau in the Stadtwiki Dresden
• Heinrich Mau, court jeweler at www.albert-gieseler.de
• Two silver candlesticks by Heinrich Mau on www.lot-tissimo.com as an example of his work.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In the address book for Dresden and its suburbs , born in 1910, the company is listed as Heinrich Mau and Carl Mau, owner Johannes H. Mau, gold and silver goods, Prinzlich Preußische Hofjuweliere, Dresden, Friedrichs-Allee 2 .