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Following the Tracks of the Art Collection of Dr. Hermann Weissmann with Reference to the Works in the Museum of Slavonia
Andreja Šimičić
; Muzej Slavonije
Sažetak
Hermann Weissmann (1884-1943 (?)), a lawyer and collector from Osijek, Croatia donated one part of his collection to the Museum of Slavonia and stored another part of it in the Museum during World War II. The collection consisted of his family library, a numismatic collection, and a collection of paintings and graphics. He created his art collection in two locations – in the clerk’s office at 9 Radićeva Street and in his home at 4 Gaj Square. Today, it is divided between the heritage institutions of Osijek – the Museum of Fine Arts, the State Archives, and the Museum of Slavonia. The provenance research of the Collection of Paintings and Frames of the Department of Arts and Crafts has identified seven artworks as part of the collection of Hermann Weissmann. It was based on the documentation preserved in the Documentary Collection of the History Department of the Museum of Slavonia and in the database in the State Archives in Osijek. In the context of exploring Dr. Weissmann’s art legacy, his library, which reveals his interest in both art history and art topics, is also a very valuable source of information.
Hermann Weissmann was born in Virovitica, Croatia in 1884 in a Jewish merchant family. In Osijek, in the early 1920s, he opened a law practice and started a family. He was a prominent public and cultural employee in the city of Osijek. With the outbreak of World War II, as a prominent Jew, Dr. Weissmann disappeared from public life. Together with his most immediate family, he was deported to the Tenja camp near Osijek in 1942, from where the Jews from Osijek were sent by train to the Auschwitz concentration camp. He tried to save his life by donating his collections – the library, numismatics, and the collection of Croatian painters, as mentioned earlier, to the municipality (i.e. city) of Osijek.
A record with a list of pictures and books not intended for donation, but listed as a legacy in the lawyer’s office in Radićeva Street and in the apartment in Gaj Square, was preserved. The paintings and graphics are listed according to the rooms in which they are located; in four rooms in the clerk’s office, in two rooms on the ground floor of the apartment, and in two rooms on the floor of the apartment, a total of 34 pictures in the clerk’s office (oils, graphics, sketches) and 29 pictures (oils, watercolors) in the apartment. There were mostly graphics and drawings in the office, among which the oeuvre of Hugo Conrad Hötzendorf stands out, as well as the works of Vladimir Filakovac and Josip Zorman, while the cycle of 12 engravings of the old Osijek is also important. The only painting from the clerk’s office that is preserved in the Collection of Paintings and Frames is an oil painting by Gvozdenović listed as Boats. Fig. 1
The topics of the paintings listed in the apartment are in accordance with the more intimate nature of the space, so this part of the list reveals nudes, intimate and delightful scenes like a mother with children or children in a park, or a play of fairies. Several paintings from the private apartment were identified. The Museum holds a painting of the famous Marinist Alexei Vasilievich Hanzen, inventory code MSO-206046. Fig. 2 The painting shows the Dubrovnik landscape with a summerhouse, in the foreground a pier and two boats in the bay, in the background the Gundulić-Ghetaldi summerhouse, that is, the hotel Vila Solitudo. In the Museum of Fine Arts, there is an oil on canvas by the aforementioned author called Tugboat Pulling a Sailboat on the Turbulent Sea, and further research will reveal which image comes from the Weissmann Collection. The oil painting on the wood from the list is probably A Cheerful Company, a Flemish baroque painting, inventory code MSO-206058, the authorship of which can be attributed to the Flemish painter of genre scenes Adriaen Brouwer. Two unsigned vedute of city ports in identical frames, inventory codes MSO-209618 and MSO-209619, are identified as two watercolors Two Different Ports by an unknown painter. Fig. 4, Fig. 5 Their author could be the Viennese watercolorist Rudolf von Alt. A painting from the first floor of the apartment, Marquis by Francesco Vinea, was identified. It is a typical work of the painter’s oeuvre, and it is interesting because of the markings on the back, which allow the reconstruction of the provenance (it originates from the collection of the German collector Karl Ewald Hasse, inherited by Ernst Ehlers). Fig. 6, 6a
The list of the pictures taken for the Museum in December 1941 contains a painting by Anton Erben that depicts the Upper Town square of Osijek (MSO-154179). Since it was not on the list of the artwork by room, but on the 1946 and 1947 lists, its original location is unknown. As the earliest known oil on canvas representing the veduta of Osijek, it has a great documentary value, and it has often been exhibited. Fig. 7
In 1947, the final list of items from the legacy of Dr. Hermann Weissmann was compiled, which, due to their culturally-historical value, were extracted from the entire inheritance and officially listed as a legacy.
The research of Dr. Hermann Weissmann’s legacy in the Collection of Paintings and Frames has instigated a further search for all the artwork from the collection, as well as the possibility of the virtual unification of the preserved artworks from the Weissmann Collection, located in the heritage institutions of the City of Osijek, in order to preserve the memory of the family and the creator of the Collection through musealization.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
236421
URI
Datum izdavanja:
31.1.2020.
Posjeta: 1.478 *