{"id":5730,"date":"2025-01-23T10:17:31","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T09:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kunst-raub-rueckgabe.de\/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=5730"},"modified":"2026-03-26T09:50:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T08:50:04","slug":"glanville","status":"publish","type":"avada_portfolio","link":"https:\/\/kunst-raub-rueckgabe.de\/en\/biografie\/glanville\/","title":{"rendered":"A Family Icon"},"content":{"rendered":"

A special 13th birthday<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"Black<\/span>
Siblings Ernst and Marietta Gotthilf-Miskolcz.<\/div>

Family of Elisabeth Glanville<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Birthdays are exciting for every child. But Ernst Gotthilf-Miskolcz from Vienna would remember his thirteenth birthday for the rest of his life for another reason: It is the day on which German troops march into Austria, March 12, 1938.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"Historical<\/span>
Vienna, Invasion of German Troops, March 1938.<\/div>

Federal Archives, picture 183-1987-0922-503<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"I'll never forget it. Before the invasion, I had always been treated like a little gentleman, but suddenly I was a \"Jew pig\". My school friends had been very happy to come to my birthday party the week before. When I went back to school on Monday, they shouted \"Sieg Heil\" and \"Heil Hitler\" at me,\" he recalls decades later.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

The Three Ages of Life<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"Black<\/span>
Ernst and Marietta Gotthilf-Miskolcz, 1933.<\/div>

Family of Elisabeth Glanville<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Ernst lives with his parents Stephan and Elisabeth and his sister Marietta in Vienna's First District. An impressive work of art hangs in their dining room. A triptych that depicts the ages of a woman's life in three large-format paintings. As a shy young girl harvesting wheat, as a mother carrying a heavy basket filled with potatoes on her back, a little boy at her side, and as a hunched, exhausted old woman. The original title of the painting, \u2018Our Life Lasts 70 Years\u2019, refers to the 90th Psalm:<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/div>

\u201cThe days of our years are three score years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow, for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"Painting.<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/span>
From the magazine \"Jugend\", 1898.<\/div>

Youth 1898, Volume 2. Heidelberg University Library https:\/\/doi.org\/10.11588\/diglit.3338#0223<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

In 1898, when it was completed, this work of art caused a sensation. Even in the year of its creation, it was reproduced on a double page in the influential magazine \"Jugend\", and was exhibited in the Munich Secession exhibition and the German Art Exhibition in Dresden.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"Black<\/span>
Elisabeth Gotthilf-Miskolcz with her son Ernst, ca. 1929.<\/div>

Family of Elisabeth Glanville<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Soon after, Elisabeth's parents, Dr Fritz and Emmy Redlich, acquire the triptych and place it prominently in their apartment. Elisabeth, born in 1901, grows up with the painting, and after she marries Stephan Gotthilf-Miskolcz in 1924, she receives it as a wedding gift. It then hangs in their Falkestra\u00dfe apartment, and her children Ernst and Marietta remember seeing it every day until they leave Vienna.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"Black\"and
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The triptych dominated the room, Ernst's sister Marietta remembers. Her place at the dining table is exactly opposite the monumental figures. \"It was a family icon.\"<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Hasty escape<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"Black<\/span>
Anit-semitic sign \"Jews are forbidden to use the park bench\".<\/div>

Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2019.2.189. https:\/\/digital.kenyon.edu\/bulmash\/1517<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/h3>\n

The annexation of Austria by the Nazis in March 1938 signifies the end of the family's secure, prosperous existence. Ernst describes the sudden changes: \"I was no longer allowed to go to the park, I was not allowed to sit on the bench, I was no longer allowed to buy ice cream... everything was forbidden to me.\"<\/p>\n

Although Elisabeth and Stephan were baptized Catholics, they are considered Jewish in the racial ideology of the Nazis. Father Stephan hastily flees after receiving a tip off that he is to be deported to Dachau. \"He immediately packed a suitcase and went to the train station, where he took the first train to get to a visa-free country. It happened to be Yugoslavia,\" Ernst recalls. Elisabeth flees to Switzerland with the children. It is not until months later that the family is reunited in London.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Context<\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
<\/i>The Nuremberg Laws<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"Black<\/span>
Neue Pinakothek art gallery in Munich, around 1940. <\/div>

Munich City Archive, DE-1992-FS-STB-5091<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

In May 1938, the family apartment in Vienna is looted by the Nazis. By still obscure means the triptych comes into the ownership of a Countess Weikersberg. In 1942, she offers it for sale to the Bavarian State Painting Collections, mediated by the painter's son, Johannes von Kalckreuth. A sum of 15,000 Reichsmarks is agreed. This is how the triptych ends up in Munich in 1942.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Long and ardent search for the art work<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"Black<\/span>
Stephan Glanville in London.<\/div>

Family of Elisabeth Glanville<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

In England, Stephan and Elisabeth change their family name to Glanville and Ernst becomes Ernest.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"Historical<\/span>
\u0141\u00f3d\u017a Ghetto, 1940.<\/div>

Federal Archives, Image 101 III-Schilf-003-09<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

After the war, the Glanville family search for their relatives. Not all of them survived the Nazi terror. Elisabeth's sister Alma Eisenberger and her 15 year old son Max were murdered in the \u0141\u00f3d\u017a Ghetto. The rest of the family was able to flee and now live scattered all over the world.<\/p>\n

Elisabeth Glanville also searches for her lost possessions, including the missing works of art. She writes to the Federal Office for the Protection of Monuments and to various galleries in Vienna, even to Interpol. But in 1948 she is told no one knows anything about their whereabouts.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"Portrait<\/span>
Elisabeth Glanville in 1953.<\/div>

Family of Elisabeth Glanville<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Elisabeth does not give up. In 1971, she turns to the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Their enquiries lead her to the then location of the von Kalckreuth \u2013 the Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich. However, in April 1973 her application for restitution or compensation is rejected by the Restitution Chamber in Berlin as inadmissible because the deadlines had expired in 1948.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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More than a quarter of a century later, a turning point came with the Washington Conference in 1998. Elisabeth Glanville had died in 1983. But her children, Ernest and Marietta, had not forgotten the triptych and their mother's failed efforts to recover the cherished artwork. The demands of the Washington Principles and the first restitutions made to victims and their heirs encouraged Ernest and Marietta to make a new attempt. With the help of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, the siblings applied for the return of the painting in December 1999. And this time their request was granted.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Context<\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div><\/div>
<\/i>Washington Principles<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Restitution in London<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"Colour<\/span>
Royal Academy of Art, London. <\/div>

Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

On March 12, 2000, Ernest Glanville was 75 years old. It was a special birthday because he knew that the next day he and his sister Marietta would finally get the triptych back. Coincidentally, the artwork was at that time on display in London at the Royal Academy of Arts, in the exhibition \u20181900: Art at the Crossroads\u2019. The siblings, who both lived in north London, did not have far to go for the restitution ceremony which was attended by Dr Reinhold Baumstark, Director-General of the Bavarian State Collection and David Gordon, Secretary of the Royal Academy.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/span>
Siblings Ernest Glanville and Marietta Caspari in front of the restituted triptych.<\/div>

PA Images \/ Alamy Stock Photo<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

At the ceremony on March 13, 2000, Ernest Glanville revived the painful memories of the family\u2019s persecution by the Nazis. But he also emphasized how grateful he was that the fight for the stolen property had finally come to an end - especially on his 75th birthday.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"Extracts<\/span>
The British press gave extensive coverage to the restitution. <\/div>

Bayerische Staatsgem\u00e4ldesammlungen<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Overwhelming press response<\/div><\/div>

\u2018The Three Stages of Life\u2019 became the first work in Britain to be returned to its original owners and the national and international press gave extensive coverage to this event.<\/p>\n

Marietta died in April 2012 and Ernest in June 2018. Their respective children still treasure the memory of that special day in March 2000 and the miracle of their parents\u2019 escape from Vienna.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Video by BR about Elisabeth Glanville<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div>