Margarete Oppenheim

Margarete Oppenheim (born Margarete Eisner, October 10, 1857, in Leipzig – September 2, 1935, in Berlin) was a German art collector and patron. She was among the first personalities to collect works of modern art in Germany and owned one of the largest collection in Germany. Early life Margarete Eisner was born in Leipzig into a Jewish family in 1857, the daughter of Isidor Isaak Eisner and his wife Alwine (Lea), née Schlesinger. She was the second youngest of six children. Her father was a co-founder of the Leipzig company Callmann & Eisner, which traded in German and English manufactured goods. The family moved to Berlin in 1876. First marriage and children In the same year, Margarete Eisner married Georg Reichenheim, a chemist with a doctorate, whose family owned textile factories in Silesia. Margarete Reichenheim converted from Judaism to Christianity around the time of their wedding. The couple moved into an apartment at Viktoriastraße No. 26 in Berlin's upscale Tiergarten district. In 1877 their daughter Charlotte was born, and in 1879 their son Hans was born. The son died in 1900 as a student in Munich. In 1902 the daughter married the banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, from whom she divorced in 1927. She then married Georg Graf von Wesdehlen. The family circle also included the entrepreneur, art collector and patron James Simon, who had married Georg Reichenheim's sister Agnes in 1878. Georg Reichenheim collected art. After his death in 1903, Margarete Reichenheim continued to add to the collection, including many modern paintings before it was fashionable. Historian Felix Gilbert noted in this regard that "they thought she was crazy in the family" to buy "so many of these awful modern paintings."