Margarete Mauthner

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van Gogh's Chapel at Saint Remy was part of Mauthner's collection

Margarete Mauthner (born on July 7, 1863 in Berlin as Margarete Alexander ; died on April 24, 1947 in Johannesburg ) was a German art collector, patron, translator and author . Her works were published by Bruno Cassirer's publishing house .

Life

Coming from an upper-class family, she was brought up first by a governess, then in a secondary school for girls. Their first marriage resulted in a daughter who died in 1946. After the breakdown of the marriage, she came into contact with Munich's artistic circles through her brother. In her second marriage, she married Edmund Mauthner (1868–1909), who was five years her junior, and began building an art collection. Her focus was on the impressionists, art nouveau and the secessionists. She now also worked as a translator of monographs published by Cassirer and articles for Karl Scheffler's art magazine Kunst und Künstler . In 1917 she wrote the two-volume autobiography Rückblick , in which she traced the developments of the 19th century ( March Revolution , founding of the Empire , the founding period , crisis , rise of the Jewish bourgeoisie ) based on her life .

The Alexander / Mauthner family lived at Matthäikirchstrasse 1 in a house built in 1840 that was destroyed in World War II and is now the location of the Philharmonic. Robert Musil named the building The Enchanted House . Mauthner's retrospective manuscript, rediscovered by the Musil biographer Karl Corino , was published in 2004 under the title The Enchanted House . It describes the links between Mauthner, her brother, her cousin, Paul Cassirer (like his brother Bruno a publisher) and Musil. The enchanted house also plays an important role in Musil ( The Temptation of the Quiet Veronica , Die Schwärmer ) and was also the title of a Musil work from 1908.

During the time of National Socialism she made it possible for family members to flee into emigration through financial support and emigrated to South Africa after the November pogroms of 1938 , where she died in 1947.

Mauthner made a major contribution to making Vincent van Gogh's art known in Germany and translated his letters. She supported a number of artists with whom she was personally known, including Lovis Corinth , Henry van de Velde and Erich Hancke . Her loans to exhibitions helped modern art to break through in Germany.

Mauthner's lifestyle fueled resentment about Jewish women in the salon and hysterics, her life was shaped by the breaking up of gender stereotypes, as well as their confirmation - when she selected pictures for her collection but had them given to her by her husband.

One of the translations of Mauthner, created since 1904, is The Art of Making Enemies by the Anglo-American painter James McNeill Whistler , which deals with the insulting process against the art critic John Ruskin , who overrides today's views on defamation and (in) freedoms of ( Art) has significantly shaped criticism.

Processes for the restitution of works from the collection

Mauthner's heirs tried in vain restitution processes for two paintings by van Gogh. The painting View of the Hospice and Chapel of Saint-Remy was purchased by Elizabeth Taylor's father in 1963 . The 2005 lawsuit on suspicion of looted art was dismissed as it could not be clarified whether Mauthner still owned the picture in 1933. After the death of Elisabeth Taylor, the painting was auctioned in London in 2012 for 12.2 million euros. A lawsuit because of the drawing view of Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer cost the Swiss state 1.4 million, which was valued as a sensible investment because of its fundamental importance. The drawing is in the Federal Office of Culture assumed Oskar Reinhart Collection "Am Römerholz" . Since the drawing was sold by Mauthner for a market price as early as 1933 , a sale due to persecution could not be proven.

Works

  • Review, 1917, 2 volumes, unpublished
  • The Enchanted House, ed. And with an afterword by Karl Corino . With a foreword by the great-grandchildren of Margarete Mauthner, Berlin, Transit, 2004, 274 p., ISBN 978-3-88747-197-2

As a translator

  • Letters, Vincent van Gogh, Berlin, Cassirer, 1906, 144 p., 8th edition 1920
  • The fine art of making enemies with some entertaining examples of how I first deliberately made the serious on earth to frenzy and then in their false sense of right to indecency and folly, James McNeill Whistler
    • Berlin, Cassirer, 1909, 284 pp.
    • Leipzig, Weimar, Kiepenheuer, 1984
    • Hanau / Main, Müller, 1984, 255 pages, ISBN 3-7833-6402-7
    • Amsterdam, Dresden, Verlag der Kunst 1996, Fundus-Bücher, 140, ISBN 90-5705-020-X , 288 pp.
  • Volpone, Ben Jonson , initials, title page and cover by Aubrey Beardsley, W. Drugulin, Leipzig, Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1910, frontispiece, 163 p., Heliogravures
  • The fall of Sejanus. Volpone or the fox. The Bartholomäusmarkt, Ben Jonson, Berlin, Cassirer, 1912, 406 pp.
  • Édouard Manet : Memories, Antonin Proust , published by A. Barthélemy. Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1917, 133 pp., 24 illustrations, 2nd edition 1928
  • Die Frau Konnetable (La Connestable), Honoré de Balzac , lithographs by Lovis Corinth , Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1922, 22 pp.
  • Degas : Ambroise Vollard, Berlin, B. Cassirer, 1925, 111 p., 32 collotype plates
  • From Log House to Skyscraper: A Study of American Architecture and Civilization (Sticks and Stones), Lewis Mumford , Berlin, Bruno Cassirer, 1925, 292 pp., 25 illustrations

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Liz Taylor is attached to her Vincent, Die Welt
  2. ↑ Believes in American justice Liz Taylor keeps booty picture, n-tv.de
  3. ↑ Pictures by Liz Taylor bring 16.5 million, manager-magazin.de
  4. ↑ Expensive litigation. The process for a Van Gogh drawing costs the federal government 1.5 million, Aargauer Zeitung
personal data
SURNAME Mauthner, Margarete
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Alexander, Margarete
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art collector, patron, translator and author
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 24, 1947
Place of death Johannesburg