Richard Neumann (collector)

Richard Neumann (born December 17, 1879 in Vienna , † 1961 in New York ) was an Austrian industrialist and art collector.

Life

Richard Neumann was the offspring of a Jewish family who had made their fortune with textiles. His parents were David and Bertha Neumann, geb. Stone; his grandfather Max Bernhard Neumann had founded the MB Neumann company in Königinhof and was one of the leading textile producers in the Danube Monarchy.

Richard Neumann studied in Heidelberg and received his doctorate there. phil. In 1901 he joined the family business. In 1923 he became president of MB Neumanns Söhne Union and vice-president of Neumanns Söhne Österreichische Weberei und Druckerei AG. He also became director of Guntramsdorfer Stoffedruckfabrik and was on the board of several other textile companies.

Maarten van Heemskerck, altar wing from the Neumann collection

He owned a villa at 30 Hasenauerstraße in Vienna, which was "Aryanized" in 1938 by Daisy Princess Fürstenberg . He also owned an art collection that included more than 250 items. In 1921 the most interesting pieces in this collection were inventoried. At that time, Richard Neumann and his wife Alice agreed in a notarial act that the collection could be viewed twelve days a year - either as part of exhibitions that were organized with the participation of the state, or by people who had a legitimation from the monument office. In return, the couple was given relief in the calculation of wealth tax and a guarantee that they would be exempt from the compulsory placement of subtenants.

After the invasion of the German Wehrmacht, Neumann fled to Paris with his wife Alice . He or his daughter Dora Selldorf, who was born in 1906, succeeded in taking out part of his art collection, but many art objects ended up in the hands of the Nazi authorities.

The remnants of Neumann's collection were further reduced when the Germans occupied France. In order to finance the escape across the Pyrenees to Spain and Portugal and from there to Cuba , Richard Neumann had to part with several pictures.

Neumann found work in a textile factory in Cuba, gave evening lectures on art history and became an honorary professor at the University of Havana . He was one of the initiators of the founding of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Havana. He later moved to the USA.

Restitution of art objects from the Neumann Collection

From 1949 at the latest, Neumann tried, through his lawyer Felix Friedländer, to get back the works of art that Dora Selldorf had been forced to give away in 1938/39. In 1952 he traveled to Vienna for a meeting on this account. In the end, a barter agreement came about in which Neumann received the painting by Goossen van der Weyden Heilige Anna selbdritt and a sum of money instead of his Heemskerck altar pianos, which were to remain in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and other pieces from his collection.

In 2007 the descendants of Neumann received back two paintings by "Kremser Schmidt" Martin Johann Schmidt , which had come into the possession of the city of Krems an der Donau illegally through the "Aryanization" . The family's lawyer, together with provenance researcher Sophie Lillie, had been trying to get it returned since 2002. In 2012 at least one of the two paintings, St. Florian saves the burning Stockern Castle , was auctioned.

In 2010, Neumann's heirs received back the items that had fallen out of the family's possession due to the exchange in 1952. Specifically, there were two altar wings with pictures of the donors by Martin van Heemskerck, a sacrificial scene. Hannibal's oath by Giovanni Battista Pittoni , the painting Laundresses by Alessandro Magnasco and two statuettes by Alessandro Algardi depicting Pope Innocent X and St. Pius.

When the Allies seized objects from the former Neumann Collection after the end of the Second World War , they ended up in various French museums. In the course of this “Musées Nationaux Récupération” (MNR) three paintings - The Miracle of Saint Eligius by Gaetano Gandolfi , Abraham and the three angels by Sebastiano Ricci and a portrait of Saint Francis of Paola standing in a niche by Salvador Francesco Fontebasso - the The Louvre was placed in safekeeping and three other items were given to museums in Agen , Saint-Etienne and Tours . These six parts of the Neumann collection were identified by the art historian and provenance researcher Sophie Lillie after the MNR holdings had been listed online. The restitution of these six works of art was the most extensive restitution to date since the founding of the Commission pour l'indemnisation des victimes de spoliations (CIVS).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The grave of the parents has been preserved in the Döblinger Friedhof .
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Robert Holzbauer, Certificate on the provenance of 2 paintings by MJ Schmidt from the previous possession of Dr. Richard Neumann In the holdings of the City of Krems ' Weinstadtmuseum , April 2007
3. ↑ Barbara Petsch, Restitution: "An exemplary case!" , on: diepresse.com, February 21, 2010
4. ↑ St. Florian saves the burning Stockern Castle near Sotheby's .
5. ↑ Thomas Trenkler, Paris restitutes six works from the Neumann Collection , on: derstandard.at, March 1, 2013