Max Silberberg

Max Silberberg (born February 27, 1878 in Neuruppin , † after 1942 in Ghetto Theresienstadt or Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a German entrepreneur , art collector and patron . He ran a successful company in Wroclaw that supplied the steel industry with magnesite products . His important private collection consisted mainly of German and French paintings, drawings and sculptures from the 19th and 20th centuries. These included works by well-known artists such as Max Liebermann , Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Vincent van Gogh , some of which the collector had to part with as early as 1932 as a result of the global economic crisis . After the takeover of the Nazis Silberberg was a Jew from 1933 expropriated systematically . His works of art are now in various museums and private collections. Only after 1990 could the heirs obtain restitution of some works.

Life

Max Silberberg was born in 1878 as the son of the tailor Isidor Silberberg in Neuruppin, Brandenburg . The family, which belonged to the assimilated Jewish bourgeoisie, lived in simple circumstances. While the sister Margarete was training as a tailor, Max Silberberg was able to attend high school. After completing his military service, the family moved to Beuthen in Upper Silesia. Presumably Max Silberberg learned a commercial profession here and joined the factory for metal processing M. Weißenberg at the age of 24 as an authorized signatory . The company, which belongs to the cartel of the Vereinigung der Magnesitwerke, manufactured refractory building materials for lining blast furnaces . Silberberg later married Johanna Weißenberg, the daughter of the company owner, and became a co-owner of the company. Their son Alfred Silberberg was born on November 8, 1908.

In 1920 Max Silberberg moved to Breslau with his family . The Silberbergs lived here in a large villa at Landsberger Strasse 1–3 (today ul. Kutnowska ). The dining room, including the furniture and the carpet, was designed by the architect August Endell in 1923 in the Art Deco style . The walls of the house were soon decorated with an outstanding collection of paintings, mostly with German and French works from the 19th and 20th centuries. Silberberg also had an extensive art library - mainly with French-language literature on modern art. Due to the consequences of the global economic crisis , he had to part with 30 of his top works - including works by Monet , van Gogh and Renoir - at an auction in Paris in 1932 .

Silberberg was involved in cultural life in Wroclaw and invited people to his house for lectures - for example on the history of Judaism . He stood up for the preservation of Jewish cultural history and was one of the co-founders of the Jewish Museum Association in Breslau, as its 1st chairman he had been since March 1928. Together with Erwin Hinze, the director of the Breslau Castle Museum, he was one of the organizers of the exhibition Judaism in the history of Silesia in 1929 . In addition, he supported the Jewish Museum as a patron and donated a silver Torah shield from the 18th century and a silver Torah pointer . He was also a member of the board of trustees of the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts and was a member of the board of the Society of Friends of Art, which supported the museum as a funding institution.

After the National Socialists came to power, Silberberg, like other Jews, began systematic exclusion, disenfranchisement and dispossession. He immediately lost all of his public offices. In 1935 SS-Sturmbannführer Ernst Müller recommended the use of the Silberberg villa for the SS security service and Silberberg had to sell his house well below market value. As a result, Silberberg moved with his family into a small rented apartment and inevitably parted with the majority of his art collection, which was auctioned in several auctions at the Graupe auction house in Berlin . In addition to paintings and drawings by Menzel , Degas , Cézanne and others, as well as sculptures by Rodin , his extensive library was also up for auction.

During the November pogroms in 1938 , his son Alfred Silberberg was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp and remained there for eight weeks. He could only leave the camp under the condition that he immediately emigrated from Germany. He and his wife Gerta moved to Great Britain shortly afterwards. The financial situation of Max Silberberg deteriorated noticeably through discriminatory taxes like the Jewish property tax . He was also forced to pay the Reichsfluchtsteuer , although he and his wife did not leave. Also in November 1938 the Weissenberg company was “Aryanized” , which passed into the possession of the industrialist Carl Wilhelm from Breslau. The Breslau-Süd tax office pledged Silberberg's property because of alleged tax debts and the formerly wealthy art collector now lived in poor circumstances. He had to sell some of the few works of art in his possession to the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts. The sales proceeds, however, went to the "Aryanized" company Weißenberg. The museum also had the painting Still Life with Apples and Leek by Carl Schuch collected, which Silberberg donated to the museum as early as 1920, but which was to remain in his apartment until his death. A small remainder of his collection, including some drawings and small sculptures by Georg Kolbe, remained in his possession until 1940, before they were "Aryanized" by the Museum of Fine Arts in Breslau .

At the end of 1941, his son Alfred, living in exile in London, received his parents' last sign of life. In 1942 Max and Johanna Silberberg came to the Grüssau monastery assembly camp , from where they were deported on May 3, 1942 - presumably to the Theresienstadt ghetto. There is no record of the exact day or place of death. Various historians assume that Silberberg and his wife were murdered in Auschwitz. After the Second World War , Alfred Silberberg had his parents declared dead on May 8, 1945.

The Silberberg Collection

Creation of the collection

At the beginning of the 20th century, Max Silberberg built up one of the most important private art collections in the German Empire. Heinz Braune , who was director of the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts in Wroclaw from 1916 onwards, may have advised him on the expansion . Unlike the museums in Berlin, Munich, Hamburg or Bremen, for example, the museum in Wroclaw was closed to modern art movements before the First World War . This changed with the appointment of Braune, who previously worked as an assistant to Hugo von Tschudi at the Neue Pinakothek in Munich, where, as before at the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, he initiated the development of the French Modernist collections in particular. As an indication of the exchange between Braune and Silberberg, three donations can be read that the collector made to the museum in Wroclaw. In addition to the still life with apples and leeks by Carl Schuch, this includes a drawing by Hans Purrmann and one by Max Beckmann .

Since Breslau had no significant art trade, Silberberg, like other Breslau collectors - for example Leo Lewin and Ismar Littmann - purchased works of art through the Berlin art trade. Here it was above all Paul Cassirer who advised Silberberg on building up his collection. He was also in lively exchange with the art historian Julius Meier-Graefe and met repeatedly with artists such as Max Liebermann, Georg Kolbe and Hans Purrmann. In addition, he also bought works in the Thannhauser gallery in Lucerne or at one of the so-called Russian auctions in Berlin. There is evidence of the acquisition of a drawing by Greuze that was previously in the Hermitage collection and that was put on the art market for the purpose of procuring foreign currency on behalf of the Soviet government.

Silberberg also acquired works of art directly from other collections. This included, for example, Claude Monet's painting Boats on the Seine , which he bought from the artist's family. Works from collections that were dissolved due to the global economic crisis or by inheritance also came into his possession. For example, he acquired paintings from the Adolf Rothermundt Collection in Dresden or the Leo Lewin Collection in Breslau .

• 

  Pierre-August Renoir:
  Reading
  Louvre, Paris

• 

  Edgar Degas:
  Ballet Dancers
  Private Collection

• 

  Paul Cézanne:
  Jas de Bouffan
  private collection

• 

  Vincent van Gogh:
  The Bridge of Trinquetaille
  Private collection, loan from the Kunsthaus Zürich

Description of the collection

The exact size of the Silberberg collection is no longer known, but art historians estimate it to be around 130 to 250 paintings, drawings and sculptures. Descriptions of the collection that appeared in German magazines at the beginning of the 1930s, as well as the auction catalogs from 1932 and 1935/36, provide reference points. The known acquisitions can be narrowed down from Silberberg's time in Beuthen, where he acquired the first works of the Munich School , to 1931. Within this relatively short time, Max Silberberg succeeded in amalgamating one of the most important art collections in the German Empire, with a focus on German and French art from the 19th and early 20th centuries. The aforementioned drawing by Greuze and valuable goblets and beakers from the Baroque and Renaissance periods were among the few older works .

The works of 19th century German painting in the Silberberg Collection included several works by Wilhelm Leibl , including the portrait of a man with glasses . By Wilhelm Trübner the paintings were the way to the church in Neuburg near Heidelberg and lady with white stockings as to the collection, such as the self-portrait with yellow hat , the resulting 1876 portrait Kleinenberg and the refreshment from 1880 by Hans von Marées . Another picture by a German artist is the still life with a bundle of leeks, apples and cheese dome by Carl Schuch, donated by Silberberg to the museum in Wroclaw , which is now in the Warsaw National Museum. There were also works of German Impressionism such as In the Kitchen and Market in Haarlem by Max Liebermann or Flieder im Glaskrug by Lovis Corinth . Silberberg supplemented this part of his collection with drawings by Adolph Menzel , Hans Purrmann and Otto Müller and with sculptures by his contemporary Georg Kolbe . The collection included drawings by Gustav Klimt and Paul Klee from German-speaking countries as well as the painting Stockhornkette mit Thunersee by Ferdinand Hodler .

• 

  Hans von Marées:
  Self-Portrait with a Yellow Hat
  National Gallery Berlin

• 

  Max Liebermann:
  In the kitchen,
  private collection

• 

  Lovis Corinth:
  Lilacs in a glass jug,
  private collection

• 

  Ferdinand Hodler:
  Stockhorn chain with Lake Thun
  private collection

The main focus of the Silberberg Collection in the field of French painting was on works of Realism and Impressionism. By Eugène Delacroix , the collector had the paintings Algerian Women at the Well (now privately owned) and Odalisque on an ottoman dormant ( Fitzwilliam Museum ), by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot work Poetry ( Wallraf-Richartz Museum ) and Thatched Cottage in Normandy ( Norton Simon Museum ). Silberberg also collected works by Honoré Daumier , Adolphe Monticelli , Jean-François Millet and above all works by Gustave Courbet . His paintings Grand Pont ( Yale University Art Gallery ), Reading Young Girl ( National Gallery of Art ) and The Rock in Hautepierre ( Art Institute of Chicago ) are documented in the collection.

The works of Impressionism included Pertuiset as a lion hunter ( Museu de Arte de São Paulo ) and Young Woman in Oriental Costume ( Foundation EG Bührle Collection ) by Édouard Manet and The Reading ( Louvre ), Little Girl with Hoops (National Gallery of Art) as well the privately owned pictures Laughing Girl , Gondola, Venice and Bouquet of Roses by Pierre-Auguste Renoir . The collector owned the paintings Boats on the Seine (private collection) and Snow in the Setting Sun ( Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen ) by Claude Monet . Other Impressionist works in this collection were The Seine at Saint-Mammès (private collection) by Alfred Sisley , Boulevard Montmartre, Spring 1897 ( Israel Museum ) and Path to Pontoise ( Musée d'Orsay ) by Camille Pissarro and Landscape with Chimneys (Art Institute of Chicago), La sortie du bain (Musée d'Orsay) and ballet dancers (private collection) by Edgar Degas .

Late Impressionist works in Silberberg's collection included the paintings Still Life with Apples and a Napkin ( Musée de l'Orangerie ), Jas de Bouffan (private property) and Landscape in the Aix Area ( Carnegie Museum of Art ), as well as the drawing Rear View of a Male Nude ( Ermitage ) by Paul Cézanne . There was also Die Brücke von Trinquetaille , (private property) by Vincent van Gogh , of whom Silberberg also owned the drawing L'Olivette . Works by Paul Signac as well as the cubist works Strand in Dieppe ( Moderna Museet ) and Still Life with Jug by Georges Braque are also listed . Works by Georges Seurat , Alexej von Jawlensky and Paul Klee can also be found in his collection.

In addition to the sculptures by the aforementioned Georg Kolbe, Silberberg acquired works from other sculptors. He bought the wooden sculpture Die Mourning by Ernst Barlach from the possession of the actress Tilla Durieux , which found its place in the entrance of the Silberberg house . Other works, mostly small bronzes, came from artists such as August Gaul , Auguste Rodin , Aristide Maillol , Constantin Meunier , Renée Sintenis and Henri Matisse .

• 

  Pierre-August Renoir:
  Gondola, Venise
  private collection

• 

  Alfred-Sisley:
  La Seine à Saint-Mammès
  private collection

• 

  Gustave Courbet:
  Le Grande Pont
  Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven

• 

  Édouard Manet:
  Young woman in oriental costume
  Foundation EG Bührle Collection, Zurich

Restitutions to Silberberg's heirs

After the Second World War, the heirs of Max Silberberg had great difficulties in asserting claims on their former property. Breslau had meanwhile become a Polish city and the files that could have documented the gradual expropriation of Silberberg's property were either destroyed or inaccessible to the heirs. While the Polish authorities refused to compensate for former German property - for example, land - the German authorities did not see themselves as responsible. The former art possessions were scattered around the world through auctions and resales and in most cases their whereabouts were unknown. In addition, although allied law had generally recognized that “loss of property through sale” was also to be viewed as robbery , since the sale took place under the pressure of persecution, national regulations made it difficult or impossible to demand return. From the late 1960s, most of the claims were barred. It was not until the Washington Declaration of 1998, which in particular lifted the statute of limitations, that museums and the art trade began to rethink. After the death of the son in 1984, the collector's daughter-in-law, Gerta Silberberg, was able to successfully restore some works of art after 1998. Most of the collection is still considered lost.

German museums were affected by several restitution cases. In 2003 the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart handed over the painting Still Life with a Kanne by Georges Braque to the heiress. For Corot's painting Poetry in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, the heiress and the museum agreed on financial compensation. The Berlin National Gallery acquired Hans von Marées' husband with a yellow hat at auction in Graupe auction house in 1935 and returned it to the heiress in July 1999. The museum bought the picture back from her in December of the same year. Another painting by the artist from the auction, Die Labung , was donated to the Wiesbaden Museum in 1980 . In 2014, a financial agreement was reached between the Silberberg heirs and the museum regarding the whereabouts of the picture in the museum. Also from the auction at Graupe in 1935 was Vincent van Gogh's drawing of Olive Trees in Front of the Alpilles Mountains , which the Association of Friends of the National Gallery acquired at the time and was a gift in the National Gallery and subsequently in the Kupferstichkabinett . Greta Silberberg received this drawing restituted by the State Museums and put it up for auction at Sotheby’s New York auction house in December 1999 , where it found a new owner for $ 8.5 million. Another drawing in the collection of the Kupferstichkabinett was a woman with a shawl by Caspar David Friedrich, which Max Silberberg had to leave to the Breslau tax office in 1940 to settle alleged tax debts. The heiress was also reimbursed for this drawing in 1999. Further works from Silberberg's possession can be found in the Georg Schäfer Museum in Schweinfurt. No agreement has been reached with the heiress for the paintings there, Market in Haarlem by Max Liebermann and Head of a Bavarian Girl with Inntaler Hat by Wilhelm Leibl.

In Switzerland, two works of art in particular received attention that have not yet been transferred back to the heiress. The painting Stockhornkette mit Thunersee by Ferdinand Hodler is on loan at the St. Gallen Art Museum . The private owners have not yet been able to decide to return the painting. The question of ownership of Édouard Manet's painting Young Woman in Oriental Costume (also La Sultane ) in the Zurich Foundation EG Bührle Collection is also controversial . Unlike the heiress, the museum assumes that the picture was not in Germany from 1933 until the picture was sold in 1937 and that there is no persecution-related pressure to sell. On the other hand, the painting Sewing School in the Amsterdam Orphanage by Max Liebermann, which was previously owned by the Bündner Kunstmuseum, was restored.

After an agreement with the heiress, the paintings The Rock in Hautepierre by Gustave Courbet in the Art Institute of Chicago and Boulevard Montmartre, spring 1897 by Camille Pissarro, remained in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Agreements were also reached between the heiress and the owners of works of art who wanted to sell them at auctions. In 2006, for example, prior to the auctions at Sotheby's, corresponding agreements were in place when the paintings Die Seine near Saint-Mammès by Alfred Sisley and Algerian Women at the Fountain by Eugène Delacroix changed hands.

As so-called looted art , the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg from Silberberg's former possession is the drawing of the rear view of a male nude (also L'écorché ). The Berlin auctioneer Paul Graupe is listed as the previous owner , although this drawing was also acquired by the Nationalgalerie Berlin. A return to Silberberg's heirs is, as in similar cases, not to be expected from the Russian side. Poland has also so far refused to reimburse the heirs for the works from the Silberberg Collection in the Warsaw National Museum.

See also

• List of restitution cases , in particular: Restitution cases in Germany, Israel, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

literature

• Paul Abramowski: The Silberberg Collection, Breslau . In Der Collector - German Art and Antiques Exchange , number 20, year 1930, pp. 149–153.
• Alice Landsberg: A large German private collection. The Silberberg Collection in Breslau . In Die Dame - Illustrierte Mode-Zeitschrift , number 16, year (1930), pp. 12–15.
• Karl Scheffler: The Max Silberberg Collection . In Kunst und Künstler - Illustrated monthly for fine arts and applied arts , number 30, year 1931, pp. 3-18.
• Catalog des tableaux, pastels, aquarelles, gouaches, dessins ... provenant des collections étrangères de MM; S… et S. Catalog for auction on June 9, 1932, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris 1932.
• 19th century paintings and drawings from a well-known Silesian private collection and from various private collections . Catalog for auction on March 23, 1935, Paul Graupe auction house, Berlin 1935.
• Dorothea Kathmann: Works of Art from Jewish Collections - Possibilities and Limits of Provenance Determination Using the Example of the Silberberg Collection from Breslau In: Contributions from public institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany to the handling of cultural goods from former Jewish property , edit. by Ulf Häder, Magdeburg 2001, ISBN 3-00-008868-7 , pp. 27-37.
• Anja Heuss : The Max Silberberg Collection in Breslau . In Andrea Pophanken, Felix Billeter (ed.): The modern age and their collectors. French art in German private ownership from the Empire to the Weimar Republic . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-05-003546-3 , pp. 311-325.
• Monika Tatzkow, Hans Joachim Hinz: Citizens, victims and historical justice. The fate of Jewish art collectors in Wroclaw . In: Eastern Europe , number 56, year 2006, pp. 155–171.
• Marius Winzeler: Jewish collectors and patrons in Breslau. From donation to "exploitation" of your art possessions . In: Andrea Baresel-Brand (Ed.): Collecting, donating, promoting. Jewish patrons in German society . Coordination Office for the Loss of Cultural Property, Magdeburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-9811367-3-9 , pp. 131–156.
• Monika Tatzkow: Max Silberberg . In: Melissa Müller, Monika Tatzkow, Thomas Blubacher: Lost Pictures - Lost Lives. Jewish collectors and what became of their works of art . E. Sandmann Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-938045-30-5 , pp. 114ff.

Web links

• Research project Silesian Art Collections with information on the collector Max Silberberg and his collection
• Research project Silesian art collections with information on objects from the Max Silberberg collection

Individual evidence

1. ↑ There is evidence of the deportation from the assembly camp in Grüssau Abbey. Anja Heuss assumes a subsequent murder in Theresienstadt, see Anja Heuss: Die Sammlung Max Silberberg in Breslau , p. 313; Tatzkow / Hintz name 1943 and Auschwitz as the date and place of death, see Monika Tatzkow, Hans Joachim Hinz: Citizens, victims and historical justice. The fate of Jewish art collectors in Breslau , p. 14; Winzeler also names Auschwitz as the place of death, see Marius Winzeler: Jewish collectors and patrons in Breslau. From donation to the "exploitation" of your art possessions p. 147.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Monika Tatzkow: Max Silberberg , p. 115.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Anja Heuss: The Max Silberberg Collection in Breslau , p. 312.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Anja Heuss: The Max Silberberg Collection in Breslau , p. 313.
5. ↑ In the estate of August Endell there are photos with the furnishing of Silberberg's dining room. One of the photos also shows the painting Bridge in Trinquetaille by Vincent van Gogh. See illustration in Anja Heuss: The Max Silberberg Collection in Breslau , p. 315.
6. ↑ Anja Heuss: The Max Silberberg Collection in Breslau , p. 314.
7. ↑ Monika Tatzkow: Max Silberberg , p. 119.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Monika Tatzkow: Max Silberberg , p. 120.
9. ↑ The auction house Paul Graupe, Berlin, auctioned on March 23, 1935 paintings and drawings , on October 12 drawings , from the 12th-14th December books , on December 21st sculpture and handicrafts , on January 7th 1936 sculptures and from 23rd to 25th December 1936 March again books from the collection of Silberberg.
10. ↑ Monika Tatzkow: Max Silberberg , p. 124.
11. ↑ Anja Heuss: The Max Silberberg Collection in Breslau , p. 317.
12. ↑ Silberberg's last art possession consisted of drawings by Menzel, Friedrich, Trübner, Purrmann, Liebermann, Klimt and Otto Müller as well as a watercolor by Paul Klee. See Anja Heuss: The Max Silberberg Collection in Breslau , p. 317.
13. ↑ Monika Tatzkow: Max Silberberg , p. 126.
14. ↑ Monika Tatzkow: Max Silberberg , pp. 117–118.
15. ↑ Anja Heuss: The Max Silberberg Collection in Breslau , p. 315.
16. ↑ Monika Tatzkow: Max Silberberg , p. 117.
17. ↑ Anja Heuss: The Max Silberberg Collection in Breslau , p. 318.
18. ↑ See under literature the articles in German Art and Antiques Exchange , Die Dame und Kunst und Künstler .
19. ↑ Such silver or partially gold-plated goblets and beakers can be seen in photos that the architect Endell made of the display case he designed in Silberberg's apartment. In addition to lidded tankards from Nuremberg and Augsburg, a Nuremberg Nautilus Cup and an Augsburg pineapple cup can be seen in detail.
20. ↑ Catalog Lange, 12./13. May 1942, No. 274 in the holdings of digitized auction catalogs in the Heidelberg University Library
21. ↑ Information on the painting Die Labung on http://www.kulturstiftung.de/ ( Memento of the original from May 1, 2015 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.  
22. ↑ Anja Heuss: The Max Silberberg Collection in Breslau , p. 319.
23. ↑ By resolution of March 8, 1946, the Polish state declared “the abandoned and formerly German assets” to be Polish state property. See Monika Tatzkow: Max Silberberg , p. 115.
24. ↑ Monika Tatzkow: Max Silberberg , p. 127.
25. ↑ Database of the coordination center for the loss of cultural assets in Magdeburg  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed October 27, 2011  
26. ↑ Information on the purchase of the painting Die Labung at http://www.kulturstiftung.de/ ( Memento of the original from May 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
27. ↑ Dorothea Kathmann: Works of art from Jewish collections - possibilities and limits of the determination of provenance using the example of the Silberberg collection from Breslau , pp. 31–33.
28. ^ Michael Anton: Illegal cultural goods traffic . De Gruyter, Berlin 2010, ISBN 3-89949-722-8 , p. 849.
29. ↑ Anja Heuss: The Max Silberberg Collection in Breslau , pp. 321–322.
30. ↑ Monika Tatzkow: Max Silberberg , p. 128.

This article was added to the list of excellent articles on November 2, 2011 in this version .