Rudolph Lepke

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Rudolph Lepke

Paul Ludwig Rudolph Lepke , also Rudolf (born May 12, 1845 in Berlin , † September 6, 1904 in Charlottenburg ) was a German art dealer. In 1869 he founded Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus, the first art auction house in Berlin.

Live and act

Rudolph Lepke was the son of the court art dealer Louis Eduard Lepke, who mainly dealt in paintings by old masters and copperplate engravings. Like Robert Dohme at the same time, he grew up in what was then known as the former royal palace ( Kronprinzenpalais ), which at that time housed the official apartments of the court officials. His grandfather Nathan Levi Lepke (born January 7, 1779 in Dessau ; † June 21, 1864 in Berlin) had come to Berlin from Dessau, acquired citizenship here on March 16, 1842 and initially ran the NL Lepke art dealer at Behrenstrasse 27 .

Max Liebermann's Gänserupferinnen was acquired and sold twice by Lepke in the 1870s: 1872 in Hamburg, sold to Bethel Henry Strousberg , acquired with his collection when he went bankrupt and sold to Louis Liebermann

Rudolph Lepke first trained as a bookseller and began in the early 1860s as an art dealer in the family business, which after the death of his grandfather was jointly run by his father Louis Eduard Lepke and his uncle Julius Lepke under the NL Lepke company . In 1869 they opened the Lepke painting salon in the house of the Prussian Ministry of Spiritual, Educational and Medicinal Affairs in the former Cumberland Palace on Unter den Linden 4a, corner of Wilhelmstraße (today Unter den Linden 71, used by the German Bundestag). In 1885/86, after the death of the brothers, Rudolph took over the company, now trading as Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus , and moved to Kochstrasse 28/29. Eduard Schulte took over the rooms on Unter den Linden . Lepke's 100th catalog was published in 1875, the 500th catalog in 1884 and the 1000th catalog in 1895. His specialty was the auctioning of entire estates and pieces from Prussian history and the royal family, with which he set up his own collectors' market in Berlin. Lepke was one of the sponsors of the Hohenzollern Museum ; his gifts of memorabilia to Queen Luise filled a separate showcase.

Lepke was friends with Wilhelm von Bode , who had 1,062 paintings from the National Gallery's depot auctioned by Lepke in 1887 .

For many years he was an expert on art matters at the Royal District Court I and municipal auction commissioner.

In 1900 he gave up the auction house. His long-term employee, the art historian Hans Carl Krüger, and the brothers Dr. jur. Adolf Wolffenberg and Gustav Wolffenberg. (For further history see Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus .)

Lepke died after a long, severe suffering in his house at Charlottenstrasse 16, after he had been awarded the Prussian Order of the Crown III. Class had been awarded and was buried on September 9, 1904 in the St. Petrikirchhof in the Friedenstrasse in Berlin-Friedrichshain .

literature

  • Hans Brendicke : Rudolph Lepkes 1000th catalog. In: Communications from the Association for the History of Berlin. 12 (1895), pp. 46-48 ( digitized version ).
  • Obituary. In: Communications from the Association for the History of Berlin. 21 (1904), p. 113 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Rudolph Lepke  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Rudolph Lepkes Kunst-Auctions-Haus  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Death register, registry office Charlottenburg I, No. 503/1904.
  2. ^ After Jacob Jacobson: The Jewish Citizens' Books of the City of Berlin 1809-1851. (= Publications of the Berlin Historical Commission at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Free University of Berlin Quellenwerke 4). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1962, p. 389 No. 2040; Date of death according to the Royal Prussian State Gazette. 1864, p. 1979.
  3. ^ Royal Prussian State Gazette. 1864, p. 1979.
  4. ^ Eva Giloi: Monarchy, Myth, and Material Culture in Germany 1750-1950. (New Studies in European History). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2011, ISBN 978-0-521-76198-7 , p. 196.
  5. ^ Tilmann von Stockhausen: Gemäldegalerie Berlin - The history of their acquisition policy 1830-1904. Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-87584-769-0 , pp. 207 f.
  6. ↑ Communications from the Association for the History of Berlin. 21 (1904), p. 113.
personal data
SURNAME Lepke, Rudolph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lepke, Paul Ludwig Rudolph (full name); Lepke, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German art dealer
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1845
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 6, 1904
Place of death Charlottenburg