RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ROTHSCHILD'S COLLECTION OF PAINTINGS
2013
six part wall paper with 1:1 reproductions of paintings owned by the Austrian Rothschilds until the expropriation by the Nazis, 3 × 5.6 m each, exhibition views Arbeiterkammer Vienna
The RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ROTHSCHILD’S COLLECTION OF PAINTINGS gathers 1:1 reproductions of the first class paintings – by Frans Hals, Peter Paul Rubens and others – owned by the Austrian Rothschild family.
Until the “Aryanisation” by the Nazis the better part of their collection of hundreds
of paintings and other works of art was part of the furnishing of the Palais Albert Rothschild, built 1879–84 at the site where the main building of the Arbeiterkammer Wien – the Viennese Chamber of Labour – stands today. Another part of the collection was housed in the immediate vicinity in the Palais Nathaniel Rothschild (constructed 1871–78) on the lot of today’s Education Center of the Chamber of Labour.
After World War II the artworks of the “aryanised” Rothschild’s collection were only very hesitantly returned. Today they are scattered all over the world which is why the reconstruction of the collection on their former exhibition venue remains fragmentary.