Franz Oppenheimer (1 August 1871 – 26 April 1950) was a German businessman and art collector who assembled a large and significant collection of early 18th century Meissen porcelain at his home in Berlin, Germany.

Career

Franz Oppenheimer was born the son of Ruben Leopold Oppenheimer and Rebecka Loeb in Hamburg on 1 August 1871. After qualifying as a lawyer, he joined Emanuel Friedlaender & Co, a business operating coal mines in Silesia, and rose to be managing director. In the 1920s, Oppenheimer assembled a collection of around 500 items of Meissen porcelain at his home near the Tiergarten in Berlin: some of the more important items had originally been commissioned by Augustus the Strong for display in the

Japanisches Palais The Japanisches Palais (English: "Japanese Palace") is a Baroque building in Dresden, Saxony, Germany. It is located on the Neustadt bank of the river Elbe. History Built in 1715, it was extended from 1729 until 1731 to house the Japanese p ...

in Dresden. After the Nazi Party came to power in Germany, Oppenheimer and his wife fled from Berlin to the comparative safety of Vienna in December 1936. Just before the Anschluss in March 1938, they travelled to Budapest and on, via Sweden and Columbia, to

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

where they arrived in December 1941. Oppenheimer lived in retirement in an apartment in East 86th Street and died in New York on 26 April 1950.

The Oppenheimer collection

Oppenheimer's collection of around 500 items of Meissen Porcelain was professionally catalogued in 1927. After Oppenheimer and his wife fled Berlin in December 1936, a significant part of the collection was acquired by the banker and art collector,

Fritz Mannheimer Fritz Mannheimer (19 September 1890 – 9 August 1939) was a German Empire, German-born and, from 1936, Dutch people, Dutch banker and art collector who was the director of the Amsterdam branch of the Berlin-based investment bank Mendelssohn & Co. ...

. Following Mannheimer's death in August 1939, his bank, Mendelssohn & Co., immediately ceased trading and the personal assets of Mannheimer and those of Mendelssohn & Co. were liquidated. The collection was then

expropriated Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...

Kajetan Mühlmann Kajetan "Kai" Mühlmann (26 June 1898 – 2 August 1958) was an Austrian art historian who was an officer in the SS and played a major role in the expropriation of art by the Nazis, particularly in Poland and the Netherlands. He worked with Arth ...

on behalf of the Nazi Government for display in the proposed

Führermuseum The ''Führermuseum'' or ''Fuhrer-Museum'' (English: Leader's Museum), also referred to as the Linz art gallery, was an unrealized art museum within a cultural complex planned by Adolf Hitler for his hometown, the Austrian city of Linz, near ...

. It was then taken to Vyšší Brod Monastery and, from there, to storage in an underground salt mine near

Bad Aussee Bad Aussee (Central Bavarian: ''Bod Ossee'') is a town in the Austrian state of Styria, located at the confluence of the three sources of the Traun River in the Ausseerland region. Bad Aussee serves as the economic and cultural center of the Styri ...

. After the Second World War, the collection was recovered by the so-called

Monuments Men A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

and taken to the Munich Central Collecting Point from where it was sent to the Netherlands where it was dispersed between the

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the St ...

in Amsterdam, the Kunstmuseum in The Hague and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. In October 2019, the Dutch Restitution Commission recommended that the collection be restituted to the heirs of Franz and Margarete Oppenheimer and a group of 117 chinoiserie items, including a large mantel clock case made for Augustus the Strong and dated 1727 was auctioned, on their behalf, by Sotheby's in New York in September 2021. One art expert, Alfredo Reyes, claimed that the auction of the Oppenheimer Collection was the most significant sale of a porcelain collection since the sale of

Maurice de Rothschild Maurice Edmond Karl de Rothschild (19 May 1881 – 4 September 1957) was a French art collector, vineyard owner, financier and politician. He was born into the Rothschild banking family of France. Early life Maurice de Rothschild was born on 19 ...

's collection at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...

in the late 1970s. The auction raised US$ 15 million and more than half of the items were bought back by the Rijksmuseum.

Family

Oppenheimer married Margarete Grete Knapp on 27 March 1902; they had two children, Marie Louise and Franz Karl.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oppenheimer, Franz 1871 births 1950 deaths Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States 19th-century German businesspeople 20th-century German businesspeople