Amalie Schrantz 1912

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Full-length portrait (original), likely later cropped to a half-length portrait (see insert). The sitter is wearing a black dress with a wide, straight bustline and a fur-trimmed coat over it; holding in her left hand a fur-trimmed muff. Her dark hair is pinned, adorned with a small tiara. In the background a light-colored marble fireplace with a silver goblet on top is partially shown. Parts of two paintings are also visible on the background wall.

JQAW# P_1912_100
Oil on canvas, probably ca. 220 x 140 (original) and ca. 125 x 85 cm (trimmed)
Signature (original): John Quincy Ɑdams 1912
Work lost
Image: B/W photo from the artist's estate, Künstlerhaus Archive Vienna

Amalia/Amelie Schrantz/Schranz, née Edlinger, remarried Countess Orssich, 5.4.1877 Vienna to 21.1.1954 Vienna, "Aunt Maltschi".
Amalia was the daughter of the textile industrialist Ferdinand Edlinger (1844-1932) and Amalia/Amalie E. (1849-1928), née Wech. Her parents were great supporters of the construction of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Kaisermühlen, which was consecrated in 1895, a ceremony attended by Emperor Franz Josef I himself. On this occasion, the young Amalia presented him with a bouquet of flowers. On October 20, 1902, Amalia Edlinger married the industrial magnate Alfred Friedrich Schrantz (1876-1914, the alternative spelling Schranz is also used) in the Evangelical AB Church in Vienna. He was president of the well-known Hutter & Schrantz AG, which was founded in 1824 and still exists today. Business areas: originally screen goods, wire cloth and felt cloth production, later also metal construction. Alfred Schrantz died by suicide in 1914. Between 1919/1925, Amalia Schrantz remarried the Hungarian Count Georg Orssich and from then on called herself Amelie Orssich. Press reports testify to difficulties in adapting to the new economic and social circumstances, which were accompanied by a series of court cases, but the lifestyle remained upper middle-class with staff, a villa in Hietzing and a city apartment in the noble 4th district. Amelie Orssich, who had no direct descendants, died on January 21, 1954 and is buried in the Edlinger family crypt in the Hietzing cemetery, Vienna.

The portrait of Amalia Schrantz, painted in 1912, is a characteristic representative portrait, typical of Adam's style before the First World War. The painting was presented to the public at the Vienna Künstlerhaus in 1912 (EL 57 1912/13 #1709; listed in the EL as Amalie Schranz; returned to Adams on July 20, 1912 and with an insurance value 14,000 crowns, which corresponds to a whopping 100,000 euros in today's money. Only very wealthy families could afford such a fee and many did. According to Roman Sandgruber (2013, p.437 and p.332), Alfred Schrantz had an annual taxable income of 330,000 crowns in 1910, making him the 137th richest Viennese. Ferdinand Edlinger took 788th place with 110,000 crowns.) A b/w photograph of the portrait has survived from the artist's estate, which proves that Adams attached importance to the portrait, which makes the unfortunate history of the portrait, which is lost, all the more regrettable. The portrait likely remained in the sitter's possession until 1954 and after her death passed to her parents' descendants, the Edlinger family in Kaisermühlen, Vienna, where it was kept along with Adams' portrait of her sister Gisela from 1908 (see cross-references). According to family memories, however, the portrait of "Aunt Maltschi" was considerably smaller than the portrait of Gisela Edlinger. It is remembered as a half-portrait, which is an indication that the portrait was probably cropped at a later date, whereby the original signature (bottom right) was likely lost, meaning that the portrait is no longer immediately recognizable as Adam's portrait (unless the Künstlerhaus sticker on the back has survived). Around 1980, the painting was sold to a junk dealer in Vienna's Kaisermühlen district. It has been lost ever since.

Cross-references

B/W photo of the portrait from the estate of the artist

Exhibited

1912 Künstlerhaus Vienna (EL 57 1912/13 #1409)

Literature

APH, catalog raisonné JQA 1995, p. 112, cat.#80, fig.#56.

Roman Sandgruber, Traumzeit für Millionäre, die 929 reichsten Wiener im Jahr 1910. Styria Verlag, Wien, 2013, 495 pp.

Provenance

1912-1954 the sitter.
1954-ca. 1980, Edlinger family (descendants of her parents), Vienna.
Ca. 1908 sold to a junk dealer in Vienna Kaisermühlen.
Lost since then.