"In arte voluptas" : die Kunstsammlung des Textilfabrikanten Karl Löw

The article draws attention to a hitherto virtually unknown art collection, which, thanks to his considerable financial resources, was compiled by Karl Löw (1849–1930), an artloving textile entrepreneur of Jewish origin. Over less than a decade, between 1915 and 1923, he managed to buy – at auction sales of the collections of prominent Viennese and Budapest collectors – more than 60 paintings of not just old, especially 17th century Dutch masters, but also 19th century Viennese, Munich and Düsseldorf painters. In addition to these he also devoted his collecting interest to portrait miniatures, graphic sheets, sculptures, antique furniture and various handicrafts of Western and Oriental origin. The precise records he maintained of his acquisitions now make it possible to securely identify their individual provenance. On the basis of textual and visual information of conserved auction catalogues, it is possible to get a specific idea of the artistic and thematic composition of now irreversibly scattered collections, which after 1919 had found a suitable location in the neo-Gothic extension of Löw's residence in Helenín (Helenenthal) near Jihlava, for the most part in a specially commissioned gallery space. At the same time, in many cases, they also provide support for their identification with conserved, but mostly as yet undetermined works. As an example pars pro toto may serve a masterpiece by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Palm Sunday (1853) in the collections of the Moravian Gallery in Brno.