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Margaret "Gretl" Stonborough-Wittgenstein (September 19, 1882 – September 27, 1958), of the prominent and wealthy Viennese Wittgenstein family, was a sister of the philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is con ...
and the pianist Paul Wittgenstein. She was the subject of a famous 1905 portrait painted for her wedding by the artist Gustav Klimt (Stonborough-Wittgenstein and other members of the Wittgenstein family were among Klimt's most important patrons), which was sold in 1960 by her son Thomas and may now be seen in the
Alte Pinakothek The Alte Pinakothek (, ''Old Pinakothek'') is an art museum located in the Kunstareal area in Munich, Germany. It is one of the oldest galleries in the world and houses a significant collection of Old Master paintings. The name Alte (Old) Pi ...
gallery in
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
.


Biography


Marriage and children

On 7 January 1905, she married a wealthy American, Jerome Stonborough (1873 – June 1938, suicide). Of German Jewish ancestry and born Jerome Herman Steinberger, he had had his name changed to Stonborough in 1900. He was also an art collector. Margaret and Jerome were close friends with Hermann Rothe, and Margaret was the godmother of his daughter Margarethe. The couple had two sons and divorced in 1938; Jerome committed suicide shortly thereafter. * Dr. Thomas Humphrey Stonborough (1906–1986). His Swiss friend Marguerite Respinger (1904–2000), whom he had met when he was studying in Cambridge and had invited to Vienna, was briefly (1926–1931) the only known female interest of Ludwig Wittgenstein. In 1939, Thomas Stonborough married Elizabeth Churchill, but they soon divorced (she was to remarry
Washington Evening Star ''The Washington Star'', previously known as the ''Washington Star-News'' and the Washington ''Evening Star'', was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C., between 1852 and 1981. The Sunday edition was known as the ''Sunday Sta ...
columnist Constantine Brown, and became a journalist and anti-communist activist under the name of Elizabeth Churchill Brown).
Haus Wittgenstein Haus Wittgenstein (also known as the Stonborough House and the Wittgenstein House) is a house in the modernist style on the Kundmanngasse, Vienna, Austria. The house was commissioned by Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein, who asked the architect P ...
was owned by Thomas Stonborough until 1968 when it was sold to a developer for demolition. * Major John Jerome Stonborough (11 June 1912, Vienna - 29 April 2002, Ferndown, Dorset). Although a US citizen, he served in the Canadian army during Second World War as an intelligence officer and interpreter. He married the daughter of a distinguished Northumberland family, Veronica Morrison-Bell (daughter of Sir Claude William Hedley Morrison-Bell, 2nd Baronet), and after the war lived between Britain and Austria.


Career

After the
First world war World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Stonborough-Wittgenstein was appointed by the American Relief Administrator
Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
(later president of the United States) as special representative of the American Relief Program for Austria. When working in juvenile prisons as a psychotherapy adviser, she came into contact with
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
and was analyzed by him over the course of two years. They remained in contact until Freud's death.


Haus Wittgenstein

In 1926, she commissioned her brother Ludwig and the architect Paul Engelmann to design and build
Haus Wittgenstein Haus Wittgenstein (also known as the Stonborough House and the Wittgenstein House) is a house in the modernist style on the Kundmanngasse, Vienna, Austria. The house was commissioned by Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein, who asked the architect P ...
in Vienna. Sold by her son Thomas in 1968, this noted building still stands today, and now houses the Bulgarian Cultural Institute.Jeffries, Stuart
"A dwelling for the gods"
''The Guardian'', 5 January 2002.


Final years

In 1940, she emigrated to the US, but returned to Austria after the war and obtained restitution of part of her wealth which had been confiscated by the
Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. She moved back into Haus Wittgenstein until her death in 1958, passing the house on to her son, Thomas.


Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stonborough-Wittgenstein, Margaret 1882 births 1958 deaths Philanthropists from Vienna Jewish emigrants from Austria to the United States after the Anschluss Wittgenstein family People from Hernals Analysands of Sigmund Freud