Hermann Eissler

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Hermann Jacob Eissler (born July 20, 1860 in Vienna ; died February 26, 1953 in Nice ) was an entrepreneur and art collector.

Life

Hermann Eissler was born in Vienna in 1860 as the son of the timber dealer, commercial and stock exchange councilor Jakob Eissler and his wife Rosa. He had several siblings. The family company Josias Eissler & Söhne was most recently located at Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Platz No. 2 in the 1st district of Vienna . There was a branch in Mistelbach (Lower Austria) .

Hermann Eissler attended the Vienna Academic Gymnasium . The later writer Arthur Schnitzler was one of his classmates there. He noted his visits to the Eissler house in his diaries. After finishing school, Hermann Eissler studied geology with Eduard Suess at the University of Vienna . Eissler received his doctorate on the geological structure of the Rax-Alpe and graduated with the title Dr. phil off. He sums up his impressions gained during numerous mountain hikes in enthusiastic poems, which he published in 1888 in the volume Edelweiß, Lieder eines Bergfexen . After completing his studies, he worked in the family business and became a partner there. Later he was called Kommerzialrat like his father.

Hermann Eissler's first marriage was with Barbara Havliscek, who died before 1917. Eissler's daughter Berta Morelli (1893–1975), whose fatherhood he recognized in 1901, comes from an extramarital relationship. In 1929 Eissler married the much younger Hortense, née Kopp (1895–1983), for the second time. Hermann and Hortense Eissler lived in Vienna at Auerspergstrasse No. 2 and used an estate in Kleinzell in Lower Austria as their country residence .

After Austria was annexed to the German Reich in 1938, Hermann Eissler was persecuted as a Jew by the Nazi rulers; his wife Hortense, however, was considered an Aryan according to the applicable race laws . Hermann Eissler had Czechoslovak citizenship and fled to Hungary in the spring of 1939. In Budapest , he and his wife received citizenship of Nicaragua on March 12th . Hermann Eissler then emigrated to France via Switzerland and from then on lived in Nice. His wife obtained the annulment of the marriage in Vienna on August 31, 1939 - possibly to secure the property. In some cases, she managed to export works of art from her husband's collection to France with the approval of the Federal Monuments Office. She sold other works of art during World War II . Hortense Eissler lived on the family estate in Lower Austria until the end of the war. In 1951 Hermann and Hortense Eissler married a second time. He died in Nice in 1953. His grave is in the Vienna Central Cemetery .

Art collection

The exact size of Hermann Eissler's former art collection is not known and any directories have not been preserved. The assignment of works of art to individual members of the Eissler family is also problematic. Jacob Eissler's father already had a small collection, including works such as Adoration by the Shepherds by Gillis van Tilborgh and The Sleeping Postillon by Carl Schindler . Hermann Eissler collected some paintings, works on paper and sculptures together with his brother Gottfried (1861–1924). These collections were characterized by continuous changes, which included extensive acquisitions but also numerous disposals. Personal interests as well as economic reasons may have played a role here. From 1938 at the latest, Hermann Eissler also transferred parts of the art collection to his wife and adopted daughter for reasons that arose from his persecution as a Jew.

Hermann Eissler's collection included some works from the Italian Renaissance , such as the painting Madonna and Child by Carlo Crivelli , but also works by Galasso Galassi , Callisto Piazza , and Lorenzo Lotto . Sometimes there are also references to painters such as Tintoretto , Caravaggio and Guardi . Examples of Dutch baroque painting were paintings by Adriaen and Isaac van Ostade . The focus of the collection, on the other hand, was on works by Austrian painters of the 19th century such as Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller , Rudolf von Alt and August von Pettenkofen . In addition, there were pictures by Arnold Böcklin , Franz von Lenbach , Adolph von Menzel and Ludwig Richter from the German-speaking area . Hermann Eissler owned the painting Die Post by Carl Spitzweg . In addition, his collection was internationally oriented and included the paintings Willy Lott's House by John Constable . Sunset in the Mountains by Giovanni Segantini , Love's hunting ground by Edward Burne-Jones , portrait of David Anderson by Henry Raeburn , portrait of Pedro Romano by Francisco de Goya and works by Fernand Khnopff , Théo van Rysselberghe and Jan Toorop . The works of French artists in the Eissler Collection included the painting The Capture of Weislingen by Eugène Delacroix , Pig Maid and Woman's Head by Gustave Courbet, and pictures by Théodore Géricault and Honoré Daumier . Eissler's collection of works from French Impressionism and Late Impressionism , of which he was one of the earliest buyers in Austria, is of particular importance . For example, he owned the oil study for A Bar in the Folies-Bergère by Édouard Manet , a Reading Girl by Pierre-Auguste Renoir , the landscape of Village Behind the Trees by Paul Cézanne , and the self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh that is today the Foundation EG Bührle Collection in Zurich .

  • Carlo Crivelli:
    Madonna and Child

  • Carl Spitzweg:
    The Post

  • Édouard Manet:
    A bar in the Folies-Bergère , (study)

  • Paul Cézanne:
    Village behind the trees, Ile de France

  • Vincent van Gogh:
    Self-Portrait

After the Second World War, Eissler's widow and daughter tried repeatedly to get works of art back from the Austrian state. Most restitution efforts were unsuccessful, however. In 2009 the advisory board responsible for restitution issues decided to return the four paintings pharmacy shop signs: Hygieia, Hippokrates, Galen, Flora by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller to the heirs, while other paintings by Waldmüller, the painting Christ on the Mount of Olives by Galasso Galassi and the terracotta sculpture design for a memorial for Victor Hugo von Auguste Rodin stayed in Austrian museums.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Spelling "Jakob Eissler" see Alexandra Caruso, Anneliese Schallmeiner: Separately and together: The collecting brothers Gottfried and Hermann Eissler in Eva Blimlinger, Heinz Schödl: The practice of collecting , p. 100.
  2. ↑ Alexandra Caruso, Anneliese Schallmeiner: Separately and together: The collecting brothers Gottfried and Hermann Eissler in Eva Blimlinger, Heinz Schödl: The practice of collecting , p. 101.
  3. ↑ Alexandra Caruso, Anneliese Schallmeiner: Separately and together: The collecting brothers Gottfried and Hermann Eissler in Eva Blimlinger, Heinz Schödl: The practice of collecting , pp. 102-103.
  4. ↑ a b Alexandra Caruso, Anneliese Schallmeiner: Separately and together: The collecting brothers Gottfried and Hermann Eissler in Eva Blimlinger, Heinz Schödl: The practice of collecting , p. 104.
  5. ^ Resolution of the Advisory Board on Restitution Issues
personal data
SURNAME Eissler, Hermann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Eißler, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Entrepreneur and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH July 20, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1953
Place of death Nice