The “Anschluss” (annexation) of Austria
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1987-0922-500
A family of art lovers
Family collection
Julius Kien was among those who saw their lives change dramatically. Up until then his life had been on an upward trajectory. Kien was born in 1868 in a small town in Moravia (now a region of the Czech Republic) and his family – father Josef, mother Minna, and their six children – moved to Vienna towards the end of the nineteenth century. Josef was a building contractor and could afford to send his children to university. His son Stefan, for example, studied medicine and became public health officer and head physician at the Federal Police Directorate for Vienna.
Bayerischer Rundfunk
Julius Kien founded a commercial agency which was located in a grand building directly behind the Votive Church in the Alsersgrund district of Vienna. The family would go on vacation to Bad Aussee, Bad Ischl, or Gmunden in the Salzkammergut, a region known for its lakes and mountains.
Family collection
Julius and Adele, née Fischl, married in 1899. They had three children: Walter was born in 1900, Hedwig in 1903, and Friedrich in 1904.
The Kien family played an active part in all that Viennese culture and society had to offer. For example, in around 1911 Julius Kien joined the Österreichischer Flottenverein (Austrian Navy Association), a union of patriotic citizens of the Dual Monarchy which advocated the naval prowess of the Habsburg Empire.
Family collection
The Kiens had a keen interest in art and culture. Their daughter Hedwig gained a doctorate in art history. Like her father, she was passionate about East Asian culture. They were both members of the “Association of Friends of Asian Art and Culture in Vienna”. The Kiens established their own art collection which reflected their fascination for Asia. They owned antique Chinese ceramics and netsuke, carved figurines from Japan.
Family collection
The collection also contained a large number of paintings, ranging from Old Masters to works by modern painters such as Klimt und Schiele. The Kiens were repeatedly asked to lend pieces to exhibitions; their Blumenstillleben (Still Life with Flowers) that was attributed to the circle of Jan Brueghel, went on display several times in Vienna.
Forced to flee
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen
Repressive measures against the Jewish population were introduced directly after the “Anschluss”. In July 1938 Julius Kien had to disclose the value of his assets. In the “Register of Jews’ Assets” he provided a precise list of all his possessions. The Kiens soon realized that the only way to save themselves was to flee the country. However, to do so they first had to pay the Levy on Jewish Assets imposed by the National Socialists as well as the Reich Flight Tax. Julius Kien raised the immense sums required by selling his artworks. In this way he also put the Blumenstillleben , which was attributed to the painter Jan Brueghel, on the art market.
By the end of the year, the Kiens’ daughter Hedwig and their son Friedrich had fled to Australia with their families. Julius and Adele Kien had to wait until the following year to join them.
Family collection
These were dark years for the Kien family. In July 1942 the National Socialists revoked Julius Kien’s citizenship and seized his house, his land, and his remaining assets. Adele Kien died in 1943 in exile in Australia.
Family collection
In the same year, Julius’s sisters Emma and Charlotte were murdered in Auschwitz.
Julius Kien died in 1949 in Sydney.
The fate of the Blumenstillleben
bpk-Bildagentur No. 30013986
Entrepreneur Fritz Thyssen bought the Blumenstillleben to add to his extensive art collection. Thyssen was a supporter of the National Socialists and helped advance their rise to power. His relations with the regime later soured and he fled to France. He hoped to emigrate to Argentina, but in 1940 France’s Vichy regime handed him and his wife Frau Amélie over to the German authorities. The couple were interned in a number of concentration camps in Germany. After the war a denazification tribunal classified Thyssen as a “minor offender” (minderbelastet).
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen
In 1992 Thyssen’s art collection was acquired by the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum (Bavarian National Museum) and the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen (Bavarian State Paintings Collections). The Blumenstillleben thereby entered the holdings of the Alte Pinakothek museum.
When the curator in charge of the painting examined it in 2012, she came to the conclusion that it was not a Brueghel original but rather a replica produced in the painter’s workshop. While inspecting the work, she noticed two stickers on the back. These indicated that the painting had been on display in exhibitions in Vienna in the 1930s. As this period of history always requires critical investigation, she commissioned research into its provenance. The traces led back to Julius Klein. It soon became apparent that he had lost the painting as a result of persecution. Efforts were made to track down the rightful heirs.
Bayerischer Rundfunk
The process swiftly yielded results. In 2006 the Weltmuseum (an ethnological museum) in Vienna had already restituted three works to the descendants of Julius and Adele Kien: a pair of funerary urns (hunpings) and a ceramic vessel from China. The museum had previously exploited the Jewish couple’s financial hardship in order to obtain these items for its collection. The contacts established by the Weltmuseum were also useful for the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen.
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen
Several months later Prof. Jenny Kien from Israel received the Blumenstillleben as representative of the joint heirs. She is Julius Kien’s granddaughter. Their lives briefly overlapped: she was born in 1948 in Sydney, a year before Julius Kien’s death.
