Henriette Zierer ca. 1905
.
for picture descrption s. below
JQAW# P_1905_110
Oil on canvas dimensons unknown
Signatur: John Q. Ɑdams
Work lost
Picture: Österreichs Illustrierte Zeitung Kunst Revue Heft 12 (1908) S.293
Henriette Zierer, née Wechsler, 21.2.1882 Jassy (Bukovina, today: Iași RO) to 15.7.1944 Auschwitz (Shoa).
Three-quarter portrait in seated position, oblique view from the left. The sitter sits in a club armchair, her hands resting on the armrests, her gaze turned towards the viewer. Her dark hair is pinned up and adorned with a piece of jewelry in the form of a stitch. She is wearing a light-colored dress with metal appliqués at the hem and decorated with a flower (?), as well as a white feather boa. She is holding a closed fan in her right hand. Around her neck she wears an elaborate pearl choker with numerous diamonds in the center. Background: a sketched domestic interior.
Henriette was born in 1882 in Jassy in Bukovina (todays Iași in Romania on the border with the Republic of Moldova). Around 1898, her family, who called themselves Wechsler Wohlmuth, moved to Vienna.
On May 27, 1903, Henriette married Ernst Ludwig Zierer (1871-1923), the eldest son of the banker and investor Wilhelm Zierer (1841-1929), at the Jewish City Temple in Vienna. Wilhelm Zierer left a lasting mark on Vienna with the construction of several prestigious residential (private and rental) palaces, including the Philipphof (destroyed), the Lauberhaus (Hoher Markt/Kärtnerstraße, destroyed) and the still-standing Palais Zierer-Kranz in Argentinierstraße (now the Russian Trade Agency), which was decorated by artists Ernst and Gustav Klimt as well as Tina Blau. Wilhelm Zierer is also known for his extensive art collection (that partly passed to his daughters Flora Berl and Lili Oppenheimer, known from provenance research). Also noteworthy was his support of the artists of the Vienna Secession (especially Carl Moll, who painted the luxurious interior of the Ziererpalais in 1899). In 1891, Wilhelm Zierer acquired the neo-Gothic Mikosdpuszta Castle and large agricultural estate near Szombathely, a town on the present-day border between Hungary and Austria.
Mikosdpuszta became the center of life for the newlyweds Henriette and Ernst Zierer, where Ernst ran a model farm (Hungary's first farm with artificial irrigation), whose success in increasing agricultural yields (especially potatoes) he often reported on in agricultural committees and publications of the monarchy. However, the couple also maintained a residence in Vienna, where their children (sons Hubert and Hans and daughter Elisabeth) went to school and Henriette took an active part in Viennese social life (for example, her dress, which she wore at the 1905 Vienna Derby, was reported in the press). This desire for social self-presentation and likely also the birth of her first child (Hubert 1904) explains why Adams was commissioned for the portrait. During the First World War, the family increasingly moved to Mikosdpuszta. In view of the catastrophic supply situation in Vienna caused by the war, children relocation programs were set up. Henriete opened her home in Mikospuszta to groups of 20 children at a time, who for the first time again found rest and sufficient food. After the end of the First World War, the Zierer family opted for Hungarian citizenship. In 1923, Henriette's husband Ernst died in Vienna at the age of 51. Henriette continued to run the farm in Mikospuszta as a widow, and the children all received specialist agricultural training (daughter Elisabeth also completed training in livestock farming in addition to her interpreting studies). Sons Hubert and Hans (János) became also co-owners of the estate.
The family's life took a dramatic turn in 1938 with the Anschluss, i.e. the annihilation of Austria and the takeover of power by the Nazis. Henriette and her children, her sister Marie and her mother Susanne sought refuge in Mikospuszta, where they lived in relatively safety until 1944, even under the anti-Semitic Hungarian Horthy dictatorship (see his Adams portrait). In March 1944, German troops occupied Hungary and the ghettoization and deportation of Hungarian Jews began as of April. The Zierer family was first taken by the Hungarian Gestapo to a ghetto in Szombathely, where they were mistreated and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp (probably at the beginning of June). Henriette, her sister Marie and her mother Susanne were murdered upon arrival. Son Hans and daughter Elisabeth were destined for “death by labor”. (There are no sources about son Hubert, but he was probably not in Mikosdpuszta at the time of the deportation. He managed to escape to the USA, where he died in 1989). Son Hans died in the Buchenwald concentration camp shortly before liberation in 1945. Daughter Elisabeth managed to escape from the death march of the concentration camp evacuation in the Dresden area in 1945 and was rescued by American troops, for whom she then worked as an interpreter (and met Henry Kissinger in the process). She later emigrated to the USA, where she died in California in 1993. In 1986, she reported on her traumatic experiences in a moving oral history project, which is available online.
The portrait of Henriette Zierer illustrates the splendor and tragedy of Vienna and its inhabitants in the 20th century like few other of the artist's works. It is staged entirely in the tradition of the representative, upper-class portrait, which borrows from aristocratic self-portraiture. Henriette sits in a club fauteuil (which is used several times in Adam's portraits in the period 1905-1908, for example in the comparable portrait of Bertha Habig, see cross-references), wears an elaborate dress and is additionally staged with a white feather boa, fan and a spectacular pearl-brilliant choker necklace. The portrait was created in Adam's studio in Vienna VII Burggasse 30 (in use until 1908, then in Vienna IV Theresianumgasse) and was also exhibited at the Vienna Künstlerhaus at the turn of 1906/1907 (EL 50 1906/07 #2912) and documented by a black and white lithographic print and also published (Österreichs Illustrierte Zeitung Kunst Revue Heft 12 (1908) S.293). The painting is lost and was likely looted after the family's deportation from Mikosdpuszta or destroyed by Russian troops (who completely devastated the castle) during the occupation in 1945.
Cross-references
Exhibited
1906 Künstlerhaus Vienna (EL 50 1906/07 #2912)
Literature
APH, catalog raisonné JQA 1995, p. 71, cat.#40, fig.#27.
Provenance
Ca. 1905-1944 the sitter, Miskosdpuszta, HU.
Since then lost.