Barthold Suermondt
Barthold Suermondt (18 May 1818, Utrecht – 1 March 1887, Aachen) was a German entrepreneur, banker, philanthropist,[1] and art collector, of Dutch-Huguenot heritage.[2]
He was born in 1818 in Utrecht to Dirk Christiaan Suermondt and Elizabeth Twist. In the 1830s he worked with the Cockerill-Sambre steel manufacturers in Seraing, Belgium. He took over management of the company in 1840 following the sudden death of his wife's uncle John Cockerill.[1] Coming from French extraction, Suermondt was responsible for attracting French investment into Germany during the 1830s-40s.[1] At that time he founded in Germany a steel company that after a number of name changes in 1870 became known as Rheinische Stahlwerks, where he served as president until 1878.[3]
His first marriage was to Amalie Elisabeth Cockerill (1815–59), daughter of the wealthy entrepreneur James Cockerill. The couple had six sons.[4] He later married Nancy Suermondt Haniel (1843–1896), whose father was the mining entrepreneur Max Haniel.[5]
He was a major collector of Netherlandish and Dutch Golden Age painting,[6] and acquired works by, amongst others, Jan van Eyck,[7] Jan Vermeer,[8] Frans Hals, Hans Holbein the Younger, Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Steen. In 1874 a large part of the Suermondt collection was passed to the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, a purchase headed by Julius Meyer and art historian Wilhelm von Bode funded by a grant of £50,000.[9] The sale of his art collected came when his company experienced a rapid collapse.[3] Another portion of his collection, amounting to 105 paintings, was bequeathed to the city of Aachen in 1882, and was instrumental in building up the display of the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum.[4] That year Suermondt was made an honorary citizen of the city of Aachen.[10] Around 1850, he had been portrayed in three-quarter view by Ludwig Knaus; today the work hangs in the foyer of the Suermondt-Ludwig.[11]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Cameron, 377
- ↑ Cameron, 358
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 James, 123
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Pocknell, 116
- ↑ Pocknell, 115 & 445
- ↑ "Rembrandt: Reputation and the Practice of Connoisseurship". Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004. 39. ISBN 9-0535-6625-2
- ↑ Meiss, 175
- ↑ Liedtke, Walter A. "Vermeer and the Delft School". NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2001. 470.
- ↑ Alexander, 209
- ↑ Hanf, Walter."Der Bleierzbergbau bei Rescheid". www.wisoveg.de. Retrieved 12 February 2013.
- ↑ Lambertz, Henry; Schrouff, Rosa-Marita. "Das Porträt von Henry Lambertz". Taschen Gmbh, 2011. 380. ISBN 3-8693-1533-4
Sources
- Alexander, Edward P. Museum Masters: Their Museums and Their Influence. Sage Publications, 2002. ISBN 0-7619-9131-X
- Cameron, Rondo E. France and the Economic Development of Europe, 1800-1914. Routledge, 1961.
- James, Harold. Family Capitalism: Wendels, Haniels, Falcks, and the Continental European Model Harvard University Press, ISBN 9780674021815
- Meiss, Millard. "Light as Form and Symbol in Some Fifteenth-Century Paintings". The Art Bulletin, Volume 27, No. 3, 1945. JSTOR 3047010
- Pocknell, Pauline (ed). "Franz Liszt and Agnes Street-Klindworth: A Correspondence, 1854-1886". Pendragon Press, 2000. ISBN 1-5764-7006-7
