Robert von Hirsch

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Robert von Hirsch-Koch (1883–1977) leather manufacturer, art collector, patron, Dr. hc of the University of Basel, grave in the Hörnli cemetery, Riehen, Basel-Stadt
Grave in the Hörnli cemetery , Riehen, Basel-Stadt

Robert Max Hirsch , von Hirsch from 1913 (born July 13, 1883 in Frankfurt am Main , † November 1, 1977 in Basel , Switzerland ) was a German leather manufacturer and patron . He was a typical example of the art-loving industrialists of the 1920s and 1930s.

Life

Gift of the employees of the leather goods company to Robert von Hirsch

Hirsch came from the assimilated Jewish upper middle class in Frankfurt and was the son of Ferdinand Hirsch (1843–1916), who founded an iron wholesaler there in 1867, and Anna Mayer. He had two older brothers Paul and Karl. In 1898 Hirsch joined the leather factory Mayer & Feistmann (later J. Mayer & Sohn ) founded on July 15, 1857 in Offenbach am Main in Luisenstrasse, which belonged and became his uncle, Kommerzienrat Ludo Mayer (1845-1917) there in 1906 as a partner. An encounter with Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig von Hessen-Darmstadt at the inauguration of a company building in Offenbach in 1913 led to the elevation of Hirsch to the grand-ducal Hessian nobility , an honor originally intended for Ludo Mayer. After his uncle's death in 1917, he ran the company alone.

As Frankfurter served Hirsch in World War I as a royal Prussian lieutenant of the Landwehr - Cavalry .

In addition to his entrepreneurial activity, Hirsch trained as an autodidact to become an art expert and began to build up an art collection at the age of only 24 (1907), which he expanded significantly between 1920 and 1933 with the help of the city's director Georg Swarzenski . He put the focus of his collection on the art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. But he also bought historical furniture, everyday objects, carpets and tapestries as well as works of art from the 20th century. He was appointed administrator of the Frankfurt Städel early on and thus belonged to a group of young art collectors who donated important works of art to the museum. The most famous Hirsch foundation was the painting Flowers and Ceramics (fleurs et ceramique, 1913) by Henri Matisse .

In 1927, Hirsch commissioned the architect Anton Eyssen to build a villa in Frankfurt's Westend ; the building at Friedrichstrasse 64 was demolished in June 2010 after 83 years. In 1933 he emigrated to Basel, where his company already had a branch. He managed to take his art collection with him and even expand it in exile. He had previously bought the right to export his collection with Lucas Cranach's masterpiece Judgment of Paris as a gift to Hermann Göring . He also helped the art historian Adolph Goldschmidt to flee to Basel in April 1939.

In 1940, Hirsch became a Swiss citizen and in 1945 married the sculptor Martha Dreyfus-Koch (1892–1965), a young acquaintance and daughter of the Frankfurt jeweler Louis Koch. The couple lived in a villa built in Louis XIII style in 1888 in the midst of a large garden on Engelgasse, which also housed his collection of medieval and Renaissance art in Petersburg . Already at this time he gave important works from his collection out of gratitude to Basel museums. In 1955 he was made an honorary doctorate from the University of Basel . Hirsch was of the opinion that public museums only had to collect canonized art. The acquisition policy of the museums of the city of Basel under their directors Arnold Rüdlinger and Franz Meyer , who preferred contemporary, not yet implemented American art, led to dissent and diverted the childless Hirsch from his plan to donate the entire collection to the city of Basel after his death donate. In his will, he decreed that his collection should be closed, some works should go to museums, but the majority should be auctioned. This happened on eight auction days in June 1978 at Sotheby’s in London. In the spring of 1978 the works were shown again in the Städel and in the Kunsthaus Zurich , the spectrum ranged from gold background paintings to applied arts and furniture from the Middle Ages to works of impressionism. It brought in 18.4 million pounds (78 million DM at the time  ). With the help of the Federal Republic of Germany and under the coordination of Josef Abs , twelve German museums acquired valuable works from the collection. “The most expensive piece of the auction at 4.6 million marks, an enamel medallion of a personification“ Operatio ”from the Remaklus reredos of the Stablo monastery from the middle of the 12th century [...] went to the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, an armilla from the Circle of Friedrich Barbarossa to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg , the important Dürer watercolors "Trintperg" to the Kunsthalle Bremen ". Hirsch no longer set foot on German soil after 1933.

Selection of works from the Robert von Hirsch collection auctioned in 1978

Hirsch supported charitable and cultural institutions with foundations and donations, especially the German Leather Museum in Offenbach.

His brother Paul Hirsch had taken over his father's iron business and was also an important collector. His great niece, the writer Silvia Tennenbaum , portrayed Robert von Hirsch in her novel “Streets of Yesterday” (1983) as the literary figure of the banker and art collector Eduard Wertheim.

Awards

coat of arms

In shields split by silver and red, two upright stag poles of confused color. On the helmet with red and silver blankets a growing red armed silver stag .

literature

  • Arnd Bauerkämper , Manuel Borutta , Jürgen Kocka : The practice of civil society. Campus, 2003, ISBN 3-593-37235-5 , pp. 221f. ( GoogleBooks ).
  • Helmut Schneider: Last chance . In: Die Zeit , No. 15/1978.
  • Sotheby, Parke Bernet: Masterpieces from the Robert von Hirsch Collection, 1978.
  • Masterpieces from the Robert von Hirsch collection. Exhibitions at the Städelsches Kunstinstitut Frankfurt am Main 23.3. – 16.4.1978, Kunsthaus Zürich 20.4. – 4.5.1978, Royal Academy London 1.6. – 8.6.1978 , exhibition catalog, publisher: Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt (Main) 1978.
  • Lothar Gall : The banker Hermann Josef Abs , page 425f., Verlag CH Beck, 2006, ISBN 3-406-54738-9 ( GoogleBooks )
  • Paul Arnsberg , Hans-Otto Schembs: The history of the Frankfurt Jews since the French Revolution . Ed .: Board of Trustees for Jewish History. Verlag E. Roether, Frankfurt (Main) 1983, ISBN 3-7929-0130-7 , p. 197.
  • Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945. Edited by the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem. Saur, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 155.
  • Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss , (Ed.), Biographisches Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration nach 1933 / International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933–1945 , Vol II, 1 Munich: Saur 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 516.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels , Adelige Häuser B Volume XV, page 236, Volume 83 of the complete series, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1984
  2. ↑ Hans-Otto Schembs: Jewish patrons and donors in Frankfurt am Main , page 86, Ed .: MJ Kirchheim'sche Foundation in Frankfurt am Main. Waldemar Kramer Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-7829-0566-4 ( excerpt ).
  3. ↑ July 15, 1857: Founding of the Julius Mayer & Sohn leather works
  4. ^ Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels , Adelslexikon Volume V, page 233, Volume 84 of the complete series. CA Starke Verlag, Limburg (Lahn) 1984.
  5. ↑ Frankfurt Städel Museum
  6. ^ Georg Kreis: Donation to the Kunstmuseum Basel. Retrieved November 11, 2019 .
  7. ^ Georg Kreis: 1978, auction in London. Retrieved November 11, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Andreas Hansert : Hirsch, Robert (von) in the Frankfurter Personenlexikon (article as of June 29, 2016).
  9. ↑ Silvia Tennenbaum: Yesterday's Streets . Translated from the English by Ulla de Herrera. Schöffin, Frankfurt am Main, 1983 ISBN 978-3-89561-486-6
personal data
SURNAME Hirsch, Robert von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hirsch, Robert; Hirsch, Robert Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German industrialist and patron of the arts
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1977
Place of death Basel , Switzerland