Who created the Foundation for
The Queen among the Ridinger Collections
With Autograph Dedication by just the Son & Collector
Gutmann, Wilhelm Ritter von. Out of My Life. Printed as manuscript. Reprint from the original edition of the year 1891. Vienna, Carl Gerold’s Sohn, 1911. In German. 140 pp., the first four & last three white. Dark green h. morocco with especially wide morocco corners with marbled covers set off by triple gilt line, richly gilt back incl. author/title stamp, marbled fly-leaf & light green bookmark ribbon. Gilt edges. (Ferdinand Bakala, archducal chamber supplier, Vienna, IV. Belvedergasse 21.) – Santifaller II, 112.
The fine bibliophile edition
on wide-margined heavy wovelike mouldmade paper with watermark
in the binding by the archducal bookbinder Bakala
with his gilt stamp with coat-of-arms
on the inner front cover
and Rudolf von Gutmann’s written dedication
“ Mr. Leonard Kuring (?) in / sincere reverence / Dedicated / … / March 1932 ”
(in German) on page 3 (white). – Back paled to lighter brown, otherwise impeccable. – Rare , no copy of either edition in the Gutmann sales London 1993.
Economic development and intellectual backing of the industrial magnate
Wilhelm von Gutmann (1826-1895)
as a Krupp of the imperial & royal monarchy on the occasion of his “40 years of independent business activity” under the motto “The most important factor in the intellectual and moral development of the children is the life of the parents” and with the résumé
“ … for me an important criterion was: I did not strive for one-sided profit, but founded the business on mutual . Only when both parts look back with satisfaction at an agreed and performed transaction the business appeared to me as corresponding with the claims of ethics and at the same time furnished with the guaranty of lastingness. More than many presume the success of most of my enterprises might be based on this simple principle, strictly observed by me however. “
As extensively these enterprises up to banking and about 124,000 acres landed properties ultimately had developed, as comprehensive the collecting activity of the second son Rudolf (1880-1966) turned out who was so lucky that the elder brother Max took over the economic leadership of the empire. He devoted his interest aiming at the completeness of the graphic work to his Ridinger collection distinguished not least by states as had no equals before and after him. He dedicated his 2-volume collection catalog of 1910 edited by Ignaz Schwarz – see his presentation copy Roman I here – “in loyalty” to his mother Ida, née Hungarian baroness von Wodianer. Thematically leading far beyond Thienemann and with a plenty of illustrations unrivalled till today it is the noblest curtsey of literature to the master’s œuvre. And its bibliophile pleasure sui generis into the bargain.
Rudolf von Gutmann found himself in the comfortable situation of setting an example
“ that one can enjoy capital only
by transforming it into art ”
(Dirk Schümer in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of April 6, 2004, on occasion of the exhibition The Age of Rubens in Genoa with the résumé “There it is a good idea to study the economical globalization about 1600 when the rich still knew that one can enjoy capital …”).
So the Gutmann collections grew to the essence of what above intellectual and economic fatherly striving had been.
Offer no. 15,231 / sold
„ vielen Dank für die schnelle Zusendung des Buches ‚Der Ahorn‘. Ich freue mich insbesondere, weil dieses Buch mein Opa geschrieben hat und es somit für mich eine große Bedeutung hat. Viele Grüße aus Berlin “
(Frau U. C., 7. Juni 2004)